Covid Passports

[Manoverboard]

I would go the whole hog and have ID cards. Imagine how useful they would be wherever you are that in the case of accident they can know who you are, here you live, blood group etc etc. And of course there would be no problem for the police in establishing who you are,
Highly likely there are plenty of libertarians who would disagree but having carried an ID card for many years I didn't see any problem, unless you have something to hide.

Going to be a bad day I find myself totally in agreement with you OBF

You've got me worried now Ray

It must be Covid fatigue

[Ray Scully]

what is the difference twixt a covid passport and eg a 'yellow fever' certificate?
not a lot!

Depends on the format i suppose. My yellow card was just a document presented with my passport. To be effective a Covid 'passport' would most probably require a photo. Photo's now on your UK passport and driving licence meet a certain specification regarding their use for facial recognition.

[Kendhni]

what is the difference twixt a covid passport and eg a 'yellow fever' certificate?
not a lot!

Depends on the format i suppose. My yellow card was just a document presented with my passport. To be effective a Covid 'passport' would most probably require a photo. Photo's now on your UK passport and driving licence meet a certain specification regarding their use for facial recognition.

For travellers, I was thinking the easiest way may be to add an official stamp into peoples passports. Could be done when you get your second jab or even a two part stamp one for each jab).

[david63]

I was thinking the easiest way may be to add an official stamp into peoples passports

Too easy to forge

[Onelife]

I don’t think there is any fail-safe method but some kind of encrypted passport would put many off trying to breach a national database.

Two weeks till Cheltenham

[Kendhni]

I was thinking the easiest way may be to add an official stamp into peoples passports

Too easy to forge

Any form of certificate is easy to forge (up to and including passports and driving licenses). One advantage though of using the passport is that legislation already exists to deal with 'defacing' and forging content on passports. It would also tie a vaccination record to a passport number -something that would be easy to verify with the majority of technology already in place.

[towny44]

Why dont we leave it for the govt experts to decide and agree on a workable system, which is foolproof and easy for any country, airline, cruise line or vacation property to accept as valid proof of vaccination.

[Kendhni]

Why dont we leave it for the govt experts to decide and agree on a workable system, which is foolproof and easy for any country, airline, cruise line or vacation property to accept as valid proof of vaccination.

We are??? We are just discussing something, unless of course you are saying we should never ever again discuss or question anything ... just leave everything to the experts and kow tow to their thinking. That is not a world I want to be part of.

[david63]

The easiest, and most foolproof way, for travel purposes would be to link that part of the NHS database to the passport database so that when your passport is swiped it would say "Yes", "No" or "Exempt". The only problem with that would be that all countries would need to update their passport scanning software.

[Manoverboard]

The passport stamp is ok but covid jabs could be year on year and passports have to be renewed of course. There needs to be an electronic solution methinks.

[Stephen]

The easiest, and most foolproof way, for travel purposes would be to link that part of the NHS database to the passport database so that when your passport is swiped it would say "Yes", "No" or "Exempt". The only problem with that would be that all countries would need to update their passport scanning software.

Sounds the best option to me, and I would have thought it wouldn't be too much of an issue to update scanning equipment.

[towny44]

Why dont we leave it for the govt experts to decide and agree on a workable system, which is foolproof and easy for any country, airline, cruise line or vacation property to accept as valid proof of vaccination.

We are??? We are just discussing something, unless of course you are saying we should never ever again discuss or question anything ... just leave everything to the experts and kow tow to their thinking. That is not a world I want to be part of.

So you think Gove and company will be trawling these forums for ideas????
I was merely suggesting that whatever we post or think, it is unlikely that our specific views will be taken into account, I was not proposing that we all shut up that would be just fantasy anyway, merely stating the obvious, despite your protestations that you are not kow towing to any govt think tank.

[Kendhni]

The easiest, and most foolproof way, for travel purposes would be to link that part of the NHS database to the passport database so that when your passport is swiped it would say "Yes", "No" or "Exempt". The only problem with that would be that all countries would need to update their passport scanning software.

That is pretty much what I was suggesting plus the added extra of having a visible stamp on the passport.

The only real issue would be to tie peoples passport IDs and NI Numbers/Medical card numbers together - however, you might get the sort of feedback that I got about 15 years ago when, as part of a project I was working on, I dared to make the suggestion of tying a couple of different governmental department systems together ... you would have thought I had suggested the mass murder of all babies.

[Kendhni]

Why dont we leave it for the govt experts to decide and agree on a workable system, which is foolproof and easy for any country, airline, cruise line or vacation property to accept as valid proof of vaccination.

We are??? We are just discussing something, unless of course you are saying we should never ever again discuss or question anything ... just leave everything to the experts and kow tow to their thinking. That is not a world I want to be part of.

So you think Gove and company will be trawling these forums for ideas????

What makes you think that I think that?

[david63]

The only real issue would be to tie peoples passport IDs and NI Numbers/Medical card numbers together - however, you might get the sort of feedback that I got about 15 years ago when, as part of a project I was working on, I dared to make the suggestion of tying a couple of different governmental department systems together

But that is happening already with passport data - certainly DVLA use passport photo and passport number is used as verification for several Government departments for online access.

[oldbluefox]

It would make it a lot easier to detect fraud if all government departments were linked onto one database. It should have happened years ago.

[Kendhni]

The only real issue would be to tie peoples passport IDs and NI Numbers/Medical card numbers together - however, you might get the sort of feedback that I got about 15 years ago when, as part of a project I was working on, I dared to make the suggestion of tying a couple of different governmental department systems together

But that is happening already with passport data - certainly DVLA use passport photo and passport number is used as verification for several Government departments for online access.

I would like to think that things have moved on a bit in the last 15 years but it still very much depends on what information you want to link.

[Kendhni]

It would make it a lot easier to detect fraud if all government departments were linked onto one database. It should have happened years ago.

Indeed it would, but that could be considered an invasion or privacy e.g. linking benefit records, schooling records, health records etc. etc. I am with you though, why it was not done years ago is beyond me.

[Frank Manning]

Since I have been having treatment I have been fairly impressed with the NHS access records, and the way my excellent lady GP doctor can read everything that has been going on between me and the consultant. I don't see why we cant have a system where we have full ID cards, and the record of all of our vaccinations made a subset which can be checked by a simple card reader at an authorised terminal.As for objections. When I was in the Merchant Navy I had all sorts of of vaccinations, Cholera, Yellow fever, etc. These were all recorded on a certificate, and there was no refusing, you did what was required for the ship to visit its various ports. All these conspiracy theorists need their heads testing if you ask me. It's all just common sense.

[Kendhni]

Since I have been having treatment I have been fairly impressed with the NHS access records, and the way my excellent lady GP doctor can read everything that has been going on between me and the consultant. I don't see why we cant have a system where we have full ID cards, and the record of all of our vaccinations made a subset which can be checked by a simple card reader at an authorised terminal.As for objections. When I was in the Merchant Navy I had all sorts of of vaccinations, Cholera, Yellow fever, etc. These were all recorded on a certificate, and there was no refusing, you did what was required for the ship to visit its various ports. All these conspiracy theorists need their heads testing if you ask me. It's all just common sense.

We have been hearing about joined up government for over 30 years and sadly we still seem to be a long way away from it.

During the Gordon Brown years there was talk about building a national DNA database. To me there were huge medical, societal and other advantages to such information and so I was in total favour of it (as long as the DNA data and identification data were totally isolated - except through court order, to avoid commercialisation of the data). Sadly however the media whipped the public into a frenzy of indignation and it never got the go ahead.

Could you imagine today just how useful such a database could have been with the COVID crisis. Every lab would be analysing every aspect of DNA and demographics information looking for patterns that could maybe help explain, treat and even destroy this much more effectively.

[david63]

building a national DNA database

There already is one, albeit on a much smaller scale, that could easily be expanded - it is called UK Biobank and has already contributed much to the Covid research.

[Kendhni]

building a national DNA database

There already is one, albeit on a much smaller scale, that could easily be expanded - it is called UK Biobank and has already contributed much to the Covid research.

I had forgotten about that one - just needs to become fully national

[CaroleF]

Many many years ago when I was nursing at St. Bartholomew's in London we were told when we had to have a vaccination, no arguing, you just did it. Can I have a moan? Don't think I've had one for a while. I'm sure I'm being a bit pedantic but maybe not when I read postings on a Barts Old Nurses site. When the Duke of Edinburgh was admitted to Barts the news reporters would insist on calling it St. Barts - No! It's either Barts or St. Bartholomew's. St. Barts is an island in the Caribbean. Then to add insult to injury one reporter said St. Barts is one of the oldest hospitals in the UK. Barts is the Oldest hospital in the UK. It was first built in 1123 by a monk Rahere. The rather smart modern entrance shown on the TV is very new. The old main entrance was round the corner in Smithfield, the Henry VIII gateway which leads into the Square with its trees and fountain still all there. From the Square the old George V building's facade is still there but when you to into the hospital it's like entering a different universe - so modern. All the Nightingale wards that I knew have gone. Even most of the ward names have gone, now it's numbers. A shame I think as it's removing a bit of history - the names I mean. One other thing that's new to me is that in my day Barts didn't have any private rooms. If anyone famous came in - I remember the Earl of Snowden - Princess Margaret's husband - being admitted, then they went into one of the side rooms off one of the ordinary wards. Now apparently Nuffield are building a new wing which will be for private patients. Things do change.

Carole