Vaccine passports: path back to normality or problem in the making?

6 hours ago, scorecard said:

Sure, I suspect everybody would be strongly expecting that the databases/access to the databases has gold standard security.

 

Seems that the time is coming soon where impending international passengers will have to prove that they have had a complete Covid 19 vaccination. if the security is poor and can easily be manipulated* then it seems unscrupulous people could organize hackers or whoever to 'confirm' a passenger has had the vaccination when in fact they haven't.

This brings all sorts of dangerous scenarios.

(*My colleagues who are IT experts say there are plenty of hackers around who 'just love to hack anything' and plenty will accept payment for a specific 'hack'.) 

I agree that security is an issue, especially since all the major proposals envision having travelers use apps to authenticate their vaccination status.

That's why I think that the opposite approach is better, to have each individual have their own fixed QR code which could be displayed on a WHO card, on a sticker in their passport. Then various dedicated apps would be used on phones belonging to clinics (people giving the jabs), airport screeners, immigration, etc. Each such app has a different function, of course, and has specific capabilities, predetermined rights to write data (or not) on databases.

In addition, travelers could enter their QR code when making a reservation so that there would be little chance of having problems when checking in. Airlines would have to update their online reservation software so that it can scan a traveler's QR code using phone or laptop camera.