Vaccine Mandates a Slippery Slope towards the Surveillance State and Mark of the Beast

[Bootstrap]

I've never used a QR code for anything related to Covid.

I have been in restaurants that wanted me to use a QR code to open their menu. I chose not to. That's the main place I have encountered this. And I do think that's where it is most likely to be normalized.

Something else to consider - nothing else would necessitate giving everyone in the world a globally unique medical indentification number but a worldwide pandemic.

For all intents and purposes, your email address, credit card number, and MAC addresses identify you uniquely on the Internet. You are already uniquely identifiable for voting purposes and billing purposes.

What would a medical identification number add to that? Is anyone seriously proposing that? If so, who, and why? That hasn't been part of the Covid response that I have experienced so far.

[Falco Underhill]

I've never used a QR code for anything related to Covid.

I have been in restaurants that wanted me to use a QR code to open their menu. I chose not to. That's the main place I have encountered this. And I do think that's where it is most likely to be normalized.

Something else to consider - nothing else would necessitate giving everyone in the world a globally unique medical indentification number but a worldwide pandemic.

For all intents and purposes, your email address, credit card number, and MAC addresses identify you uniquely on the Internet. You are already uniquely identifiable for voting purposes and billing purposes.

What would a medical identification number add to that? Is anyone seriously proposing that? If so, who, and why? That hasn't been part of the Covid response that I have experienced so far.

The WHO's website has a guideline for governments discussing what kind of information should be on it (definitely not limited to vaccine status) as well as a globally unique identification number. I'll try to get the link later.

[Bootstrap]

The WHO's website has a guideline for governments discussing what kind of information should be on it (definitely not limited to vaccine status) as well as a globally unique identification number. I'll try to get the link later.

I wonder if you are talking about this:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/han ... 14-eng.pdf

A GUID (Globally Unique Identification Number) or UUID (Universally Unique Identification Number) is just a random number generated to identify something. They can be used for anonymous identification, passwords, to identify widgets in software, all kinds of things:

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal ... identifier

You can generate these online using a variety of sites. For instance:

https://www.uuidgenerator.net/guid

Most programming language libraries also have ways to generate UUIDs. Software people use them all the time, for all kinds of things. By themselves, they carry no meaning. If they are used in a system, what matters is the information that is being collected and stored and made available, to whom it is available, etc.

For instance, privacy is the original reason for the WHO system mentioned above. They were designing a system for HIV Aids patients. Many of them lived in countries where they could be persecuted if they were known to be gay. In some countries, having HIV was enough to make people think you are gay, even if you aren't gay. So patient anonymity is important. So in a patient record, it's better to say 44e4a3c9-7783-4537-9221-a9f645e04e89 than to say Fred Flintstone (choosing a name of someone I don't think was ever gay or an HIV patient).

[Falco Underhill]

I wonder if you are talking about this:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/han ... 14-eng.pdf

No, I'm referring to this one. It's a recommendation for implementation of digital vaccine certificates that will be standardized to operate in any country.

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item ... ion-2021.1

[Bootstrap]

I wonder if you are talking about this:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/han ... 14-eng.pdf

No, I'm referring to this one. It's a recommendation for implementation of digital vaccine certificates that will be standardized to operate in any country.

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item ... ion-2021.1

OK, thanks. I have just started looking at it. One useful starting point for a document like this: search for "privacy". Here's the first thing I see:

The minimum requirements for a DDCC:VS are as follows.
→ The potential benefits, risks and costs of implementing a DDCC:VS solution should be assessed
before introducing a DDCC:VS system and its associated infrastructure. This includes an impact
assessment of the ethical and privacy implications and potential risks that may arise with the
implementation of a DDCC:VS.
→ Member States must establish the appropriate policies for appropriate use, data protection and
governance of the DDCC:VS to reduce the potential harms, while achieving the public health
benefits involved in deploying such a solution.
→ A digitally signed electronic version of the data about a vaccination event, called a DDCC:VS, must
exist. As a minimum, both the required data elements in the core data set and the metadata should
be recorded, as described in section 5.2.
→ An individual who has received a vaccination should have access to proof of this – either as a
traditional paper card or a version of the electronic DDCC:VS.
→ Where a paper vaccination card is used, it should be associated with a health certificate identifier
(HCID). A DDCC:VS should be associated, as a digital representation, with the paper vaccination
card via the HCID. Multiple forms of digital representations of the DDCC:VS may be associated with
the paper vaccination card via the HCID.

The very first bullet point on requirements for a DDCC:VS talks about privacy and potential risks. The second bullet point makes this a responsibility of member states. That's at least a good sign. The real question is this: how are privacy concerns protected? Is there a transparent way to do that? FWIW, this document also mentions HL7, I was involved with HL7 around 2000 and worked with some of the people who developed it, I am not an expert, but I have queried HL7 data and am somewhat familiar with it.

If they are doing this right, the DDCC:VS could be a good thing that protects privacy. If not, it could have real risks. I haven't yet read this in any detail. For HIV, I think they did get it right.

[Falco Underhill]

In Italy people are currently required to have a digital vaccine passport (called a "Green Pass") in order to go to work or to restaurants or to many public events. They also cannot use public transportation without one.

Italy's digital Grenn Pass (now Super Green Pass) consists of a personal QR code on a smartphone.

https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/italy ... -pass.html

[Falco Underhill]

Yes, these are the real threats. Which is what that other thread is about.

What other thread?

This thread was supposed to be about that as far as I was concerned and this was my thread!

*I* never claimed vaccines were the mark, I said the mandates could be a slippery slope to (the beast system.)

That was my intention, anyway. Not that I mind the discussions about it but that wasn't intended by me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Addendum:. This thread was also worded in such a way as to welcome anybody's view of how this pandemic as government power grab in the name of health could play into a revelation scenario.

I'm only focusing on one angle of that but I meant to draw other views into it as well. As I say, I don't necessarily see the vaccine as the mark yet, but I do see good arguments for it. At the very least I think they argue in what spirit this this being done and that's an important contribution to the discussion, as far as I'm concerned.

[Szdfan]

You don't need a global pandemic or emergency in order to normalize QR codes -- it would be a lot less disruptive to just allow commercial companies and industries to "naturally" adopt them for marketing and tracking inventory.

Exactly. I mean, look how accustomed most Americans are to opening up websites with no concern for privacy at all.

One of the trade-offs with interconnectivity is privacy -- all of us sacrifice at least some privacy for the ability to connect instantaneously with people and information all over the world. I don't really understand the argument that the "surveillance state" needs to create a pandemic or other crisis in order to seize power when the infrastructure is basically already there. China has built a surveillance state without any immediate crisis.

[Heirbyadoption]

One of the trade-offs with interconnectivity is privacy -- all of us sacrifice at least some privacy for the ability to connect instantaneously with people and information all over the world. I don't really understand the argument that the "surveillance state" needs to create a pandemic or other crisis in order to seize power when the infrastructure is basically already there. China has built a surveillance state without any immediate crisis.

Although, to be fair, China is an authoritarian government with no accountability to its people, and a resultant ability to build said surveillance state without any of the barriers present in many other countries, and frankly, has no need of a pandemic in order to institute such a system...

[Szdfan]

One of the trade-offs with interconnectivity is privacy -- all of us sacrifice at least some privacy for the ability to connect instantaneously with people and information all over the world. I don't really understand the argument that the "surveillance state" needs to create a pandemic or other crisis in order to seize power when the infrastructure is basically already there. China has built a surveillance state without any immediate crisis.

Although, to be fair, China is an authoritarian government with no accountability to its people, and a resultant ability to build said surveillance state without any of the barriers present in many other countries, and frankly, has no need of a pandemic in order to institute such a system...

Sure, but I don’t think the US would require a global pandemic either to build a surveillance state either. The kind of information needed to track people us out there already and there are already areas of tension between government or law enforcement and privacy concerns.