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Global Digital ID Coming On Heels Of Coronavirus Panic Of 2020
Image: Keidanren
By: Jacob Nordangård - 06. April 2020
Requirement #6 of the original 1934 Technocracy Study Course stated, "Provide specific registration of the consumption of each individual, plus a record and description of the individual." Thanks to the Great Panic of 2020, this is being railroaded through.
This article by TN's European contributor, Jacob Nordangård, PhD, is a must-read to understand the globalist intent to implement full-blown Sustainable Development, aka Technocracy. This is the clear and present danger to the world economic system: total control over all physical resources, including human beings. ⁃ TN Editor
A digital identity for every citizen on the globe has been identified by the World Bank and World Economic Forum as an important part in the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The right to a legal identity is a part of Global Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). An effort to achieve this is the ID2020 Alliance. A Public-Private Partnership between United Nations agencies, World Economic Forum, Foundations and Big Tech-corporations. Their grand goal, however, raises some concerns about loss of privacy, mass surveillance and population control. It comes with a price that might have severe implications for the freedom of man.
ID2020 was founded in New York 2014 by John Edge, an expert on how Public-Private Partnerships can solve the sustainability goals with the help from blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies.
The organisation, that was supported by law firm Kaye Scholer, technology conglomerate Red Rose Corporation and the merchant bank Broadhaven, held their first meeting in September 2015. Their stated mission was to give a digital identity to everyone through "leveraging start-up models" and in the end create a system that would span the globe, including the 1 billion people that currently have no proper identification.
Their first meeting, coinciding with the adoption of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, was connected to Global Goal 16 with its sub target 9 to "by 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration".
ID2020 got a more solid ground at the United Nations annual summit in May 20, 2016, gathering industry leaders, NGOs, governments, emerging technology pioneers, and cross-industry experts to "foster a global conversation and build a working coalition to identify and build the enabling conditions for the creation of a legal digital identity for all individuals at risk." Speakers came from The World Bank Group, The European Association for e-Identity & Security, Commonwealth Secretariat, Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, MIT, PSG Solutions, LLC., Verizon. Several of them were also contributors to the World Economic Forum that has since been a significant player in the development of a Digital ID.
The main topics discussed were how identities for refugees could be handled and how the Global Goals could be advanced through public-private partnerships . The European migrant crisis in 2015 had highlighted the problem with people who could not prove their identities ("paperless refugees"). The solution was at hand. A digital ID would soon be possible with the help of emerging technologies like blockchain and world wide broadband connectivity.
The rapid proliferation of smart devices globally, combined with ever-increasing computing power and rapidly expanding broadband coverage, enables new methods of registration and facilitates ongoing interaction between individuals and their identity data.
New technologies, including blockchain, when used in conjunction with long-proven technologies, such as biometrics, now make it possible for all people to have access to a safe, verifiable, and persistent form of technology. (ID2020, "digital identity")
The following year, at the annual summit 2017 in the United Nations ECOSOC Chamber, ID2020 adopted "the platform of change" and started the ID2020 Alliance, with funding from major donor Rockefeller Foundation and the digital technology consultant firm Accenture. Other founding partners were GAVI – The Vaccine Alliance, Microsoft and IDEO.org (a design and consultant firm with partners like The Rockefeller Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and The Bezos Family Foundation). Participants included Intel, IBM, Verizon, Samsung, NEC, and SAP. The Alliance featured a very tight connection between big tech companies, foundations, and vaccine and health interests.
The alliance began to develop a plan to test new identification solutions and work with governments and agencies to implement them:
By 2030, the Alliance aims to have facilitated the scaling of a safe, verifiable, persistent digital identity system, consistent with Sustainable Development Goal 16.9. From 2017 to 2020, the Alliance's work will focus on two areas: developing and testing the best technological solutions for digital identity; and, working with governments and existing, established agencies to implement these solutions.
Speakers included representatives from the mentioned partners as well as by United Nations agencies such as UNDP, The UN Refugee Agency and Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affair (OCHA). At the summit a key question was what prevented them "from solving this challenge?" They had, however, the ultimate problem for their solution in their pockets. In a report that World Economic Forum published the same year it was stated that:
In the current global geopolitical and security context, the issue of security is foremost. From terrorism to the fear of pandemics, government, business leaders and travellers alike are concerned about security and safety as they cross borders. (WEF, Digital Borders Enabling a secure, seamless and personalized journey)
Members of the ID2020 board included Dr. Seth Berkley CEO from The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), a member of Council on Foreign Relations and previously involved with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the Health Science Division at Rockefeller Foundation, Center for Infectious Diseases, and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Seth Berkley was/is also a longtime contributor and participant at the World Economic Forum. Other board members had experiences from the Department of Defence, JP. Morgan Chase, UBS, Microsoft, Accenture, and Morgan Stanley.
GAVI was founded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, UNICEF, The World Bank and WHO at the annual meeting in Davos in 2000 with the mission to vaccinate children in the world's poorest countries. It had grown out of the Rockefeller-supported The Children's Vaccine Initiative (founded in 1990). Control of vaccination and infectious diseases was to become one of the pillars to achieve a digital ID regime.
Another intriguing coincidence is that one of the advisors to ID2020 is futurist Peter Schwartz. A specialist "in scenario planning, working with corporations, governments, and institutions to create alternative perspectives of the future and develop robust strategies for a changing and uncertain world" and currently employed as Senior Vice President for Global Government Relations and Strategic Planning at Salesforce. Schwartz led the scenario-team at Royal Dutch Shell in the 1980s, that famously predicted the downfall of the Soviet Union. His climate change report, written for Pentagon in 2004, forecasting European cities under water and Britain as a Siberian wasteland by 2020 did however somewhat disgrace his reputation.
As the chairman for the firm Global Business Network he was involved in the Rockefeller Foundation report Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development from 2010 that contained the scenario Lock Step. This scenario describes a world struck by a pandemic leading to panic, tighter top-down government control, more authoritarian leadership and technological surveillance measures. The resemblance of what has played out during the Corona Crisis are quite shocking. As Peter Schwartz wrote in the foreword to the report:
The Rockefeller Foundation has already used this project as an opportunity to clarify and advance the relationship between technology and development. Through interviews and the scenario workshops, they have engaged a diverse set of people—from different geographies, disciplines, and sectors—to identify the key forces driving change, to explore the most critical uncertainties, and to develop challenging yet plausible scenarios and implications. They have stretched their thinking far beyond theoretical models of technology innovation and diffusion in order to imagine how technology could actually change the lives of people from many walks of life.
As it turns out, Rockefeller Foundation views the crisis as an opportunity to change the system. The transformation might hurt but in the end their promised digital Utopia will arise out of the ashes of the obsolete old system. What now plays out is a part of a centuries old population control agenda that was initiated by the Rockefeller foundations and now are carried out by close partners like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (an agenda described and analysed in my book Rockefeller – Controlling the Game).
Before the Corona Crisis started to make an impact and create havoc on the world economy, GAVIs CEO Seth Berkley wrote an article for World Economic Forum (We all have a stake when it comes to global health security, published 16 January 2020) with an indication of what lay ahead of us:
At a time of increasing nationalism and a rejection of globalism, infectious disease is a reminder that we are interconnected and all have a stake in global health security. (Seth Berkely, GAVI)
The COVID19 outbreak, with all its tragic consequences, happened to be the perfect trigger event to show the world the need for a global coordination and management of the planet, as well as the need for technological surveillance regime in order to track and monitor all people and diseases (and the global value chains). The remedy comes with a tighter surveillance and control. As Bill Gates was quoted saying in an conversation with TED Talk CEO Chris Anderson:
Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it. (Source)
Bill had deep knowledge on what he was talking about. The measures to deal with the pandemic opens up for the ID2020 certification, and in the end for a global digital citizenship – a fundamental pillar in the technocratic smart society (4IR) pushed by World Economic Forum to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Berkley's article coincided with World Economic Forum's release of the White Paper Reimagining Digital Identity: A Strategic Imperative. A paper written with financial support from the ID2020 partner Accenture with the message that the world is in need for a more secure digital identification because of "fraud, identity theft and misuse or abuse of personal data" in the current fragmented systems.
The white paper is a part of "The Platform for Good Digital Identity" that have been running since 2018 in order to "advancing good, user-centric digital identities". Partners include ID2020, Accenture, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Cisco, The World Bank, European Commission, United Nations and newly founded advocacy groups like One World Identity, World Identity Network and Security Identity Alliance. It is a big push that besides refugee identification and disease control is packaged as a solution to concerning issues like human trafficking and child marriages. But it comes at a price. As the partner The World Bank explains it:
Digital technologies, such as cloud computing, biometrics, mobile networks and devices, and smartcards, can increase the security, accuracy, and convenience of identifying and authenticating individuals. As public and private service providers increasingly transition into the digital realm, the ability to prove who you are will be essential for participation in the digital environment. (The World Bank)
In the utopian smart society that is currently being built, digital identity will be required in order to access all basic human services like healthcare, e-commerce, travel, financial services, and social platforms. Without it, you cannot participate. This system can then be connected to the "Blockchain-enabled citizen loyalty and reward platforms" that World Economic Forum has foreseen to come. This will, in their view, bring "peace and order" to the world… just like the Social Credit system in China.
The implementation of a global data platform to assess the "risk" level of travellers, if not through actual data, through a type of "credit score", would give governments more accurate information about passengers and better protect their borders and citizens.
The ability to effectively pre-vet the majority of passengers would enable government and border control agencies to more easily single out those that require further investigation. (World Economic Forum, Digital Borders Enabling a secure, seamless and personalized journey)
Some countries, like Sweden and Estonia, are seen as good examples as they are ahead of the rest of the world in this regard, with almost everything done digitally with very small amounts of cash in circulation. In Sweden, it gets increasingly difficult to take part of services and pay for parking tickets or train tickets without a smart phone and digital identification. Communist dictatorship China has also been in the forefront with the use of biometric payment systems (and is now being introduced in Denmark as well). In the wake of the Corona crisis, people all over the world (and in parts that are far behind in terms of digitalization) are now suddenly urged to switch from cash to digital money to "avoid contagion".
Becoming Transhuman
Smart phone devices, smart cards and biometrics have been used in most earlier projects for identification, but as a smart phones and cards can be stolen or lost, it is not far-fetched to expet that demands for more secure identification methods, like smart tattoos and implants, will become more prevalent as we move closer to 2030. This is a development that World Economic Forum has also predicted in their vision for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Smart technology devices will, during the coming decade, be integrated with our bodies for behaviour monitoring, location data, health functions and real-time identification (Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Shift 1: Implantable Technologies).
Smart tattoos and other unique chips could help with identification and location.
Digital tattoos not only look cool but can perform useful tasks, like unlocking a car, entering mobile phone codes with a finger point or tracking body-processes. (Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, World Economic Forum, 2016)
In the article "Thousands of Swedish people are swapping ID cards for microchips" (that was published by World Economic Forum in 2018) the founder of Swedish biohacking group Bionyfiken, Hannes Sjöblad, said:
Who wants to carry a clumsy smartphone or smartwatch when you can have it in your fingernail? I think that is the direction where it is heading. (Hannes Sjöblad, Bionyfiken)
Early start-ups like Swedish Biohax International have done RFID-implants in humans since 2014 and Danish firm Bichip have developed an chip that can be connected to the Internet and has a unique ID for general identification. It can also be used as a Payment System "integrateable with cryptocurrency wallets".
BiChip is the First and the Only Distance readable Human Microchip with Internet Connectivity. Bichip has a unique ID for general identification, and can store your Medical data, Driver license and Passport. It can also be used as an alternative Payment System integratable with cryptocurrency wallets. (Bichip.com)
These invasive technologies are, however, not yet a part of the ID2020 project and are more done on a voluntary basis for "convenience" and curiosity by early adapters and tech enthusiasts. The biohacker movement has since 2014 arranged conferences and their initiative Chipster arranges parties there people gets "upgraded". For now, they are only a small fringe group with its largest following in the progressive Nordic countries. But in a few years time that might change. All that is needed, to paraphrase The Club of Rome, is a crisis that fits the purpose.
COVID-19 reflects a broader trend: more planetary crises are coming. If we muddle through each new crisis while maintaining the same economic model that got us here, future shocks will eventually exceed the capacity of governments, financial institutions, and corporate crisis managers to respond. Indeed, the "coronacrisis" has already done so. (The Club of Rome, 2020)
The drive for a digital ID risks in the end to fundamentally reshape our place in society, with a human race that is more or less forced or coerced to migrate from the physical to the digital realm. If you as an individual don't accept the ID, you risk being denied access to basic services and a decent life.
United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is in the end a technocratic plan to achieve world domination – A new economic system with a digital surveillance regime that comes with severe consequences for the freedom and future of man. It is essentially a Scientific Dictatorship that requires all things to be digitally connected to function. The Corona Crisis of 2020 has been a trigger event on a scale never seen before in the history of mankind and the ID2020 Alliance and World Economic Forum has wasted no time using it to further their agenda.
We really need to ask ourselves if this is the future we want? If not, the time to act and say NO to this development is now.
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EU BEHIND THE CURVE: While other countries stop, scrap or even forbid any vaccine-passport ideas,
Seven EU countries just got a digital vaccine passport
By Charlotte Jee - 02. June 2021
The European Union's digital vaccine passport system went live in seven countries yesterday, ahead of a full launch for all 27 member states on July 1. The document, called a digital green certificate, shows whether someone has been fully vaccinated against covid-19, recovered from the virus, or tested negative within the last 72 hours. Travelers who can prove they fit one of these three criteria are not required to be tested or go into quarantine. The certificate is now being accepted in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, and Poland.
How it works: The certificate comes in the form of a QR code, which can be either stored on a cell phone or printed out on paper. The data is not retained anywhere afterwards, the commission said, for security and privacy reasons.
Why it matters: As an early mover, the EU could help to lead the way for post-pandemic global travel. The bloc is in talks with the US about how to check the vaccination status of American visitors this summer. That is likely to concern ethicists and data privacy experts, who worry that vaccine passports can be used to further entrench inequity. (To read more about why, check out the full coverage of the issues from our Pandemic Technology Project team.)
Dead end? In any case, it currently seems unlikely that vaccine passports will become common for travel inside the US. Several states, including Alabama, Arizona, Florida, and Georgia, have banned them. New York's Excelsior Pass, America's first government-issued vaccine passport, has been downloaded more than one million times, but that represents just a small proportion of the 9 million people who've been vaccinated, and the vast majority of businesses aren't using it yet.
Even early movers are ditching them. Israel was one of the first countries to roll out a vaccine passport. Its "green pass" was designed to allow access to restaurants and sporting events for those who could prove they were vaccinated. But as the country's successful vaccination rollout has driven coronavirus numbers down into double figures, Israel this week scrapped the pass as it moves to open up fully for everyone.
PEXELS | EMILY GEIBEL
UK: Covid vaccine passports plan dropped: 'Everyone says it's dead'
By Conrad Landin - 01. June 2021
UK Ministers have dropped plans to make vaccine passports compulsory for large events, according to reports.
Supporters of vaccine passports hoped such a system could allow large events such as concerts and football matches to return to normal.
The Government had launched a review into Covid-19 certificates in February.
The documents would have provided official confirmation that an individual had been vaccinated, recently tested negative or had Covid-19 antibodies after catching the virus.
But a Government source told The Telegraph on Monday: "It's not a case of 'it's finely balanced', it's not going to happen. Everyone says it's dead."
UK travellers are already allowed to show proof of vaccination before travelling abroad, via the NHS app.
Supporters of vaccine passports hoped such a system could allow large events like concerts and football matches to return to normal operation more quickly. They have cited their success in Israel – but the state plans to drop its "green pass" system on Tuesday because vaccination levels are now so high among Israelis.
Civil liberties campaigners believe they will normalise state surveillance, with Big Brother Watch saying they would "increase state control over law-abiding citizens and create a honeypot for cyber criminals".
In Scotland an option to download a letter giving proof of vaccination was withdrawn last week following security concerns. It was said that the letters were too easy to amend by people attempting to fake their vaccine status.
Scotland plans to introduce a digital vaccination passport, and in the mean time, residents can request confirmation of vaccine via a helpline.
Scottish Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said no decision had been taken by Scottish ministers on using them domestically, but confirmed he had "ethical clinical and quality concerns about their use".
(Photo: PA Wire/Dominic Lipinski)
Government shouldn't be able to require vaccine passports
By the Editorial Board / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 0 1. June 2021
Herd immunity from the COVID-19 virus is the place we want to be. The quickest and most efficient way of getting there is widespread vaccination. [N.B.: Such statements are scientifically disputed and dangerous.]
© Provided by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Across the nation, various mechanisms have been put in place to facilitate vaccination from big vaccine clinics, to messaging aimed at combating hesitancy, to incentives intended to push fence-sitters toward rolling up their sleeves.
As a country, however, we have stopped short of a vaccine mandate. There is no law requiring vaccination against COVID-19.
Such a law in a country that respects citizens' right to set their own health care course would be a concerning shift in direction. It would represent a government intrusion into an area of personal privacy that would, at the very least, result in legal challenge. The inevitable conflict that would be stoked by such a measure would distract, ultimately, from the prize of herd immunity.
Likewise, a vaccine passport — a shorthand way of describing a requirement for proof of vaccination — comes very close to a vaccine mandate if any such "passport" were to be required by government. A passport mandate for admission or participation is akin to a vaccination mandate. As such, government should not enshrine any government mandate for a vaccine passport.
Republicans in Pennsylvania's Senate have begun advancing legislation to prohibit local government units and school districts from requiring a COVID-19 vaccination for access of any sort. The bill has passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee with six Republicans in favor and four Democrats against. Other states in the nation are pursing similar legislation.
The prohibition on vaccine passports, as crafted in the proposed Pennsylvania legislation, would apply to local government, state agencies, and school districts. They would be precluded from requiring proof of vaccination to enter buildings, use services or engage in activities. The legislation would not apply to private organizations or businesses.
The legislation should become law.
A vaccine passport mandated by any governmental entity is far too close to a de facto vaccine mandate and that constitutes a deep government intrusion into a personal health decision.
It bears repeating that widespread vaccination is the goal. But, citizens must be convinced to take the initiative. They should be persuaded that getting vaccinated is a matter of individual self-interest as well as social conscience. They should be offered incentives. They should be counseled by their doctors and their friends. But, they should not be forced by law or coerced by any measure that is just shy of a legal requirement. Safety is a legitimate concern, especially in the school setting, but testing requirements can be put in place for those who insistently decline to be inoculated against the deadly virus.
In the end, making the choice to be vaccinated is right. But, in this matter and at this time, citizens have a right to be wrong. Any backdoor measure like a required vaccine passport on the part of government is giving too much power to government.
Israel lifts almost all COVID-19 restrictions; recorded only 4 cases on Sunday; Green Passport requirements ended
By IANS - 01. June 2021
Israel is almost completely lifting government restrictions IANS
Following a sharp drop in new Covid-19 infections and severe illnesses, Israel is almost completely lifting government restrictions imposed to halt the spread of the virus, the Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday.
According to the announcement, regulations under the so-called Green Passport will expire the same day, which means that in future public institutions will be open to both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, reports dpa news agency.
The presentation of a vaccination certificate as a pre-requisite for admission will no longer be required. In connection with this measure, all attendance and visitor limits for events, shops and restaurants, for example, will be abolished.
However, the obligation to wear a mask indoors will remain in place for the time being. Certain obligations also continue to apply when entering Israel. The country of nine million inhabitants has been successfully implementing a vaccination campaign since December 19, 2020. New infections and severe illnesses have fallen sharply in recent months.
On Sunday, the number of new infections with the coronavirus fell to its lowest level in more than a year. Only four cases were registered. Fewer new infections were last registered at the beginning of March 2020, at the start of the global pandemic. In parallel with the progress of the vaccination campaign, the government began to gradually relax the coronavirus restrictions.
The five phases of vaccine compliance: We are currently in phase 3, and the last phase involves door-to-door arrests of those who refuse spike protein injections
By Mike Adams - 31. May 2021
With new information provided by a contact in the federal government, I've been able to further refine the escalation hierarchy of vaccine compliance that's being pursued by the Biden regime. There are five distinct phases to this escalation:
Phase 1 – Voluntary (pushed by media propaganda, paying off social media influencers, doctors, etc.). This phase ensnares those who are gullible enough to think getting injected with spike protein biological weapons will somehow "save" them or set them free.
Phase 2 – Incentives (lottery tickets, free beer, free donuts, etc.). This phase ensnares those who are stupid enough to trade their lives for beer and donuts. There are a lot of these people, and even the globalists realize that such low IQ people have nothing to contribute to human civilization.
Phase 3 – Private sector punishments – in this stage they use corporations to deny people access to services (such as air travel, cruise ships, restaurants, sporting events, concerts, etc.). This phase hopes to make being unvaccinated extremely inconvenient. WE ARE HERE NOW.
Phase 4 – Criminal fines or jail time (government sector) – This phase will kick in after the fake news media blames the unvaxxed for continued spike protein outbreaks that are killing people. Laws will be passed in some jurisdictions that require constant vaccines and booster shots. Any who refuse to comply will be fined or jailed. You can expect this push to originate in blue states.
Phase 5) – Kinetic (military sector) – open biological and kinetic warfare on the American people, carried out by the "woke" military against the citizens. This phase will take place after the vaccine deep state works with the Biden / Obama regime to stage a massive false flag shooting tragedy that can be blamed on anti-vaxxers and gun owners. Once this event is carried out, Biden and the Democrats will call for turning the U.S. military against the citizens to carry out nationwide gun confiscation and force covid-19 vaccines at gunpoint.
As I was told by a government insider, the Biden regime has been ordered to achieve a 70% vaccination rate among US adults no matter what it takes. The false flag attack being engineered by the deep state will serve to provide the "moral justification" narrative to violate any last shred of civil rights, human rights or medical ethics when it comes to assaulting innocent Americans with deadly spike protein injections (also called "vaccines").
In essence, a vaccine holocaust is the plan.
Depopulation is the desired outcome of this nefarious plan, followed by economic collapse and the destruction of the United States of America. The very people carrying out this plan are the same people who rigged the 2020 election and achieved a political coup to illegally seize power. Now they are using that power to turn America against itself in an act of national suicide.
Today's Situation Update podcast explains these five phases in more detail, revealing how the vaccine deep state will pretend to be "the good guys" right up until the day they show up are your door and stick a rifle in your face. And remember: Confiscating guns is their most important step because forced vaccine injections can only be successful when the population is disarmed first.
Brighteon.com/fbd3e689-00b6-4e08-89bb-80b8fa3ed794
Discover a new Situation Update podcast each weekday at:
Alabama governor signs bill that prohibits vaccine passports
By Kanishka Singh - 25. May 2021
(Reuters) -Alabama Governor Kay Ivey on Monday signed a bill that prohibited private businesses and public institutions from requiring COVID-19 "vaccine passports" to access services or refusing those not inoculated against the coronavirus.
"I've signed SB 267! Since the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, both Dr. Scott Harris (state health officer) and I have said that we would not mandate vaccines in the state of Alabama", the governor said in a statement on Monday.
Lt Governor Kay Ivey waits to be sworn in shortly after Alabama Governor Robert Bentley announced his resignation amid impeachment proceedings on accusations stemming from his relationship with a former aide in Montgomery - FILE PHOTO
"I am supportive of a voluntary vaccine, and by signing this bill into law, I am only further solidifying that conviction", Ivey, a Republican, said on Monday.
The governor's statement added that Ivey has been vaccinated and would "encourage any Alabamian who has not gotten their shot to roll up their sleeves".
The Alabama Republican party said the law was "protecting the privacy rights of Alabamians from the federal overreach of the Biden Administration".
The administration of President Joe Biden has opposed the idea of making vaccine passports mandatory.
The law goes into effect immediately and says state and local governments may not issue vaccine or immunization passports, vaccine or immunization passes or any other standardized documentation for the purpose of certifying the immunization status of an individual.
The legislation cleared the state Legislature this month.
Educational institutions "may continue to require a student to prove vaccination status as a condition of attendance only for the specific vaccines that were already required by the institution as of January 1, 2021, provided that the institutions give an exemption for students with a medical condition or religious belief that is contrary to vaccination," according to the text of the law.
The coronavirus has killed about 590,000 Americans and sickened more than 33 million, according to Reuters data. But as the pace of vaccinations accelerated in recent months, deaths and infections have dropped sharply, and the country has given enough shots to fully vaccinate over 39% of the population.
Officials have said vaccine hesitancy - people unwilling to get free COVID-19 vaccine shots - could be a barrier to eliminating the threat of the virus.
But the White House is in extended discussions with U.S. airlines and other travel industry groups to provide technical guidance for vaccine passports that could be used to ramp up international air travel safely, industry officials said last month.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Opinion: Legality and vaccine passports
By Aron Solomon - 05. May 2021
The problems, issues, complexity, and obstacles of vaccine passports do not begin or end with the law. It really is an issue of how much trust we have left in 2021 with large tech companies.
Credit: TNS
Before most football seasons, news that you might be restricted from attending a Buffalo Bills game might actually be a small mercy. But we are living in interesting times, and with the Bills as one of the early favorites to compete for Super Bowl LVI, news out of Buffalo that proof of full vaccination will be required to attend Bills home games is raising eyebrows.
Has there ever been a time in history when we have trusted technology companies less than we do today, both with our information and to do the right thing?
A vaccine passport, pure and simple, is the state working with massively powerful technology companies to determine whether you will have the documentation to fit into a certain class of people. That class of people is people who have been fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
Credit: contributed
Eric J. Purchase, managing partner of Erie, Pennsylvania law firm, Purchase George & Murphey, sees vaccine passports as potentially legally complex.
"While many in our area see attending a Bills game as a constitutional right, it's not, no matter how awesome they are. However, where people will be denied participation in constitutionally-protected activities, such as attending a religious service or a public demonstration, because they refuse to obtain or present a vaccine passport, the courts are bound to strike this down."
The problems, issues, complexity, and obstacles of vaccine passports do not begin or end with the law. It really is an issue of how much trust we have left in 2021 with large tech companies. No matter how you slice and dice the issue of vaccine passports, it is going to be from both the scientific and technological perspective that the passports are created and administered.
One baseline flaw with any vaccine passport is that not just around the world but here in the United States, not everybody has had equal access to the vaccine. So in a society that is far less than equal, we are creating another level of equality in that only certain groups will have the vaccine passport. The people who are the loudest opponents of vaccine passports feel that there may be a time when your everyday freedoms could be limited by whether or not you hold a passport. But even if this is not the case, and it's limited only to things such as your ability to attend an NFL game, this still does add another layer of inequity to a society that often is seemingly built on the same.
Again, it is important to clearly distinguish between proof that you've had a vaccine, and what is being referred to as a vaccine passport. The former is absolutely necessary in that someone who has had a vaccine needs to have proof of that initial vaccine to get their second shot, if it is a vaccine that requires multiple doses. It is also believed that any of these vaccines may require a yearly booster, so proof of the date and type of your shot is an absolutely necessary medical requirement.
But we quickly enter the world of Silicon Valley and Big Tech when we talk about the passport being used for exclusive purposes. To exclude someone from attending a sporting event is not great but is at a very different level from excluding someone, potentially, from air travel because they don't possess a valid vaccine passport. The exclusive use of vaccine passports is limited only by the imagination of the governments and companies working in concert to put together these passports.
A recent piece in Wired suggested that vaccine passports could be used to deny access to schools, jobs, and even potentially credit. China already uses a social credit system which a vaccine passport program in the United States could easily become in a practical sense. If the goal of a vaccine passport is ultimately to separate the socially responsible from the socially irresponsible, those who fail to see the possible broad application of a vaccine passport is perhaps being too charitable with the private and public entities encouraging it.
Aron Solomon is the senior digital strategist for NextLevel.com and an adjunct professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Canada. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
The scientific and ethical feasibility of immunity passports
Rebecca C H Brown, PhD
Dominic Kelly, PhD
Prof Dominic Wilkinson, DPhil
Prof Julian Savulescu, PhD
Published:October 16, 2020 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30766-0
There is much debate about the use of immunity passports in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some have argued that immunity passports are unethical and impractical, pointing to uncertainties relating to COVID-19 immunity, issues with testing, perverse incentives, doubtful economic benefits, privacy concerns, and the risk of discriminatory effects. We first review the scientific feasibility of immunity passports. Considerable hurdles remain, but increasing understanding of the neutralising antibody response to COVID-19 might make identifying members of the community at low risk of contracting and transmitting COVID-19 possible. We respond to the ethical arguments against immunity passports and give the positive ethical arguments. First, a strong presumption should be in favour of preserving people's free movement if at all feasible. Second, failing to recognise the reduced infection threat immune individuals pose risks punishing people for low-risk behaviour. Finally, further individual and social benefits are likely to accrue from allowing people to engage in free movement. Challenges relating to the implementation of immunity passports ought to be met with targeted solutions so as to maximise their benefit.
Context of the debate
At this point in the COVID-19 pandemic, how or when our lives might return to normality is unclear. One strategy proposed to help this resumption is the identification and documentation of immunity: so-called immunity passports. These passports are a potential tool for recording and sharing the immune status of an individual. The introduction of immunity passports is being considered by several countries, including the UK, Estonia, Italy, and Chile; although as yet, there is no information on the effects of their use.
Health certification for public health purposes is already used in other contexts—eg, in the management of yellow fever.
Passports could take different forms, such as a wristband, smartphone application, or certificate, and be used to confirm to others that a particular individual is at a low risk of acquiring or transmitting severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). During periods of lockdown, immunity passports could allow immune individuals to follow less stringent requirements around physical distancing and travel, perhaps permitting them to return to work, care for those at risk, visit friends and relatives, or undertake other activities that expose them to the virus. Whether this strategy should be pursued depends on both scientific evidence and ethical reasoning.
The scientific evidence: are immunity passports feasible?
Immunity passports could be implemented on the basis of either a laboratory test of immune response (a correlate of protection) or an immunising event (infection or vaccination), which would identify individuals less likely to get disease or transmit virus when exposed to SARS-CoV-2. Important immunological issues for such passports are: (1) the degree of immunity induced (an immune response might only attenuate disease severity, or might prevent any symptomatic disease and even pathogen carriage, which is necessary for herd immunity / the better term is community immunity) and (2) the duration of immunity.
Critics of immunity passports point to persisting uncertainties about the immune response to COVID-19, claiming that "COVID-19 immunity is a mystery" and that this uncertainty makes immunity passports unfeasible.
Whether SARS-CoV-2 will generate a short-lived immune response similar to those produced by seasonal coronaviruses, or one more similar to those from SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronaviruses, in which antibody responses persist for 2–3 years, is unclear.
Concerns also surround the sensitivity and specificity of the tests used to define immunity, especially in populations with a low incidence of previous infection, and the need for impractical numbers of tests to be done to ensure a population remains immune.
Infection-related immunity
Symptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2 generates various T-cell, B-cell, and antibody responses against components of the virus, including the spike glycoprotein and the nucleoprotein, which could be assessed as potential correlates of protection.
For infections that have reliable correlates, these correlates have been based on antibody responses, which have the following advantages: these tests use serum or plasma that are easy to collect and store; the assays are more easily standardised and scaled for high throughput use than are cellular assays; and the assays provide a direct link to the protective immune response.Current antibody assays for SARS-CoV-2 correlates already include sensitive and specific quantitative measurements of IgG against various viral proteins, and complex viral neutralisation assays.
Following symptomatic infection, most patients develop antibody responses, with the majority of these individuals having neutralising antibodies.
Although, like all antibody responses to viral infections, responses to SARS-CoV-2 wane in the weeks after infection, increasing evidence suggests that these responses remain higher than pre-infection levels for at least 4 months (the longest period that has been possible to study).
As of September, 2020, there is not a recognised level of response for any assay that has been definitively shown to protect against disease or viral transmission. However, some progress has been made: monoclonal antibodies in animal models prevented SARS-CoV-2 infection in a dose-dependent manner; individuals with pre-existing neutralising antibodies were less likely to get infected during an outbreak on a fishing boat than were individuals with either no antibody response or antibody responses that were non-neutralising when tested pre-exposure; and higher antibody concentrations were associated with lower viral loads during illness in a study of hospitalised patients in the UK.
In the absence of an immunological correlate of protection, confirmed infection itself could be used to certify immunity. In human challenge trials with seasonal coronaviruses and primate models of SARS-CoV-2 infection, disease severity was attenuated by previous infection.
With widespread testing available and ongoing transmission occurring, there is likely to be rapid progress on quantifying the protective effect of previous infection and the duration of this effect. However, there are likely to be complexities to this approach because, for SARS-CoV-2 infection, antibody responses might be less marked in individuals with asymptomatic or mild disease than in those with severe disease.
Furthermore, several individuals with evidence of reinfection within a short period of a first illness have been described, with at least one individual being more symptomatic with the second illness than with the first.
Given the scale of the pandemic and the research into COVID-19, there is likely to be rapid progress in understanding the nature of infection and immunity such that clinical infection, with or without a measurement of antibody response, might form the basis of a time-limited immunity passport. Challenges for this approach include the heterologous nature of the initial infection, reflected in the variation in quality and duration of the subsequent immune response; the almost complete absence of information about an individual's ability to still transmit virus to others even if protected from disease; and the need to undergo the risk of infection to acquire immunity.
A recurrent criticism of immunity passports based on correlates of infection is the use of serosurveys of populations with a low incidence of infection. For instance, a Cochrane review suggested that the number of false positives produced in a setting with a 5% SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence would be around 21%.
However, an assessment of individual immunity is not likely to be derived from serosurveys of whole populations with a low incidence of infection. Such approaches are also unattractive given that asymptomatic infections might lead to less functional and less persistent antibody than might symptomatic infections. If a surveillance approach was considered in a group at high risk of infection, such as exposed health-care workers, a two-stage testing process could be implemented whereby individuals with a positive antibody test undergo second-line testing with neutralisation assays. At least one study has shown that individuals positive for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 but negative for neutralising antibodies were susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection, reinforcing the need for a two-stage approach in some settings, especially where there is no infection documented as the origin of the antibodies.
Vaccine-induced immunity
There has been rapid progress in vaccine development and emerging evidence that vaccines can provide protection from SARS-CoV-2 in animal models.
Given the ongoing clinical efficacy trials that use widespread serological and cellular sampling, there will be more data emerging as to whether vaccination could form the basis of an immunity passport and, if so, whether there are any assays that provide correlates of protection. Basing immunity passports on a vaccine has advantages: the stimulus is uniform and is therefore likely to have a more predictable pattern and duration of immunity than is infection, and vaccination makes immunity potentially available to the whole population. The ethical issue then becomes one of timely access to vaccination for everyone. In the setting of routine immunisation in a population, the duration of immunity can be estimated from efficacy studies, together with serological surveys, and these data can support booster doses rather than continually reassessing immunity in individuals.
A neglected issue in discussions of immunity passports is that of individual protection versus community protection. Perhaps the most important consideration for immunity passports is whether an individual can transmit the infection to others. Evidence from previous work with seasonal coronaviruses and studies of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in macaques suggests that previous infection or vaccination might protect from severe disease but an individual might nevertheless carry the virus at similar levels, and for a similar duration, to those previously uninfected, with an unchanged potential for transmission.
This fact provides the greatest challenge to the assurance that individuals who carry immunity passports would have a reduced risk to others. There are considerable challenges in measuring and inferring immunity to SARS-CoV-2. However, many of those challenges could potentially be overcome in the coming months. As information continues to accumulate, it is important to consider whether immunity passports should be used to reliably identify immune individuals, if this identification were possible.
Ethical arguments: are immunity passports ethical?
There are several key ethical advantages to immunity passports. First, the justification behind requiring people to remain in lockdown is the risk their free movement poses to themselves and others as they could acquire and pass on the virus. Individuals who are immune to SARS-CoV-2 are expected to be at a vastly reduced risk of getting and transmitting the virus, and so removing their civil liberties would be unjustified. It is unethical to require someone to avoid contact with others if they pose no or minimal risk of spreading the virus.
Second, people will know the reduced risks, and are likely to become less compliant with lockdown restrictions if they believe themselves to be immune anyway.
Consider Neil Ferguson, who resigned from his role as an adviser to the UK Government after breaking lockdown guidelines, stating "I acted in the belief that I was immune".
By refusing to formalise the permissibility of such actions, inevitable low-risk behaviour is classified as rule breaking, and could even subject people to fines and punishments that do not correspond to the harm their behaviour causes.
Finally, there will be benefits for immune individuals and broader benefits to society from allowing people to return to work and care obligations. Lonely and isolated individuals could be visited by immune friends and relatives; small businesses can be reopened by staff who are immune and will not risk the health of colleagues and customers; immune health-care staff can care for patients with COVID-19; and immune care workers can protect vulnerable people in residential homes.
Ethical objections
Despite these advantages, some people have strongly opposed immunity passports. In numerous articles, ethicists Natalie Kofler and Françoise Baylis have claimed that immunity passports are "the height of folly" and should be fought against "tooth and nail".
Kofler and Baylis have highlighted how, in 19th century New Orleans, LA, USA, presumed immunity to yellow fever "was weaponised to justify white supremacy", and have warned that immunity passports could cause similar effects in modern day. WHO have also expressed concerns about immunity passports, as has Alexandra Phelan writing in The Lancet, and numerous news outlets.
A rapid policy briefing by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics emphasised the ethical risks of immunity passports, speculating that these passports could "create coercive and stigmatising work environments" and are "more likely to compound than redress…structural disadvantages and…social stigmatisation".
However, the strength of much of this opposition does not seem justified by the strength of the arguments opposing immunity passports.
Undermining solidarity and creating perverse incentives
Critics warn that immunity passports create a "perverse incentive for individuals to seek out infection" or choose to fraudulently acquire passports.
How likely these scenarios would be is largely unknown. One survey suggested that people are very unlikely to intentionally seek infection, and Gilad Edelman, writing in Wired, has proposed that the reporting of so-called COVID parties might be overblown.
This area is one for which additional evidence would greatly help to judge risk and how this risk can be traded off against the benefits of immunity passports.Behavioural scientists have also highlighted research on the psychology of in-groups, social groups with which people identify, and out-groups, social groups with which people do not identify, suggesting that permitting immune individuals to exercise more freedoms than those who are not immune would undermine the message that we are "all in this together".
We are not aware of any published research that presents clear and compelling evidence supporting this assertion. There has been some exploration as to how various theories and findings from social and behavioural science can be applied to the pandemic response.
At this stage, however, extrapolation from theories supported by evidence often based on laboratory experimentation or very different situational contexts is risky. Several behavioural scientists have raised concerns about the robustness and generalisability of claims from behavioural science and caution against the use of these claims to inform major policy decisions.
Minimal economic benefits
The baseline prevalence of immunity varies from place to place. In some cities (ie, London [UK], New York [NY, USA], and Stockholm [Sweden]), the prevalence of immunity could be as high as a fifth; elsewhere, prevalence is likely to be much lower. Economic analyses are needed to find out how much economic benefit would be generated if some proportion of the population had fewer restrictions on their movement. We are not aware of any published work that informs this argument. However, it would be a mistake for ethicists, in the absence of such evidence or expertise, to dismiss immunity passports on the assumption that there will be "too few survivors to boost the economy".
In addition, immunity passports might deliver important non-economic benefits, such as regaining the ability to operate small buisnesses, to a small proportion of people.
There is suspicion that immunity passports could provide a way in to more troublesome monitoring of people's movements and health statuses.
Some have claimed that "the whole point of immunity passports is to control movement".
However, this claim is a gross mischaracterisation: the point of immunity passports is to facilitate movement when it is safe to do so. Of course, steps must be taken to avoid the production of fraudulent immunity passports, and careful attention must be given to privacy concerns and information governance. These problems are not unique to immunity passports (conventional passports and contact tracing measures also encounter such problems) and are not insurmountable.
Marginalised groups and discrimination
Immunity passports have been frequently objected to on the basis that their introduction would exacerbate existing inequalities.
The main concerns are that, if immunity passports were introduced, marginalised groups would be subject to more scrutiny because of existing inequities and racism (eg, police checks for lockdown regulations) and would be less likely to access testing (and establish immunity) than non-marginalised groups would be. Furthermore, the advantages accruing to those with immunity (and immunity passports) would persist into the future. Although we recognise the deep existing inequalities in all countries, and the ways in which COVID-19 has increased the hardships for the worst off, we are surprised that the published responses of some prominent critics of immunity passports do not include suggestions of ways to mitigate resultant inequalities.As frequently noted, such unequal experiences are not new. Factors, such as race and socioeconomic status, influence the health care that people access and the treatment they receive.
Yet, this issue is rarely interpreted as a reason to remove health-care treatments or refuse to introduce new ones, assuming these therapies are considered cost-effective and net beneficial. Instead, such patterns point us to areas in which more effort must be made to improve the care of the most deprived, to look for solutions to the inequitable distribution of resources, and to tackle the upstream causes of inequality. This same reasoning should be applied to immunity passports. Furthermore, as some have highlighted, the advantages of COVID-19 immunity might not entrench existing inequalities in the way often assumed.
Lockdown measures considerably curtail people's freedom. Immunity passports would potentially allow some proportion of the population to access more freedoms during lockdown periods. It is unethical to restrict freedom unless there is a real risk to other people. If we have the technology to decide who is not a risk, we should use it.
The specific scenarios in which immunity passports can be used will depend on the nature of the immunity generated. It might be desirable for immunity passports to record individuals, especially those who have pre-existing vulnerabilities, who have been identified as having a correlate of immunity that reliably indicates that they will not contract severe disease in the future. Alternatively, if immunity passports certify that individuals can move around freely and interact for business or leisure without increasing the risk of transmission, we might wish to certify only those who are unlikely to transmit the virus.
Although there remains considerable uncertainty regarding the nature, degree, and duration of immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the world's intense research focus on this infection will potentially yield useful answers in a practicable timeframe that could be translated into some form of immunity passport. Even after a correlate of protection is established, there will still be uncertainty around the duration of protection or whether the correlate can be applied across all ages and clinical scenarios, but complete certainty might not be necessary for policy in the medium term.
Assuming that developing scientific evidence supports the use of immunity passports, safety nets must be put in place to protect individuals who remain in lockdown and are the most disadvantaged by lockdown (eg, those who are unable to work, socially isolated, or at risk from domestic violence). Similarly, we must take seriously the need to ensure fair access to testing and to address inequality that arises in the context of COVID-19 through targeted solutions.
We must be clear about what the alternatives are when evaluating the merits of different ways of tackling this pandemic. The choice is not between returning to a normal life versus issuing immunity passports. Instead, the choice is between periodic lockdowns, attempting to emerge from lockdowns with immunity passports, and attempting to emerge from lockdowns without immunity passports. Immunity passports are a potentially valuable and ethical tool. As further evidence relating to the immune response to COVID-19 accumulates, and the capacity to reliably identify immune individuals develops, immunity passports could be appropriately adopted. In such an event, the freedoms these passports confer must be subject to amendments and cancellations, and integrated with other measures, such as contact tracing and physical distancing, to keep people safe while maintaining quality of life.
RCHB produced the initial draft of the manuscript. DK drafted the sections relating to scientific knowledge of SARS-CoV-2 immunity and provided comments on the rest of the manuscript. DW and JS provided input into the initial preparation of the manuscript and edited the full manuscript.
We declare no competing interests.
This research was supported by the Wellcome Trust (WT 104848/Z/14/Z and WT 203132/ Z/16/Z). JS, through his involvement with the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, was supported by the Victorian Government's Operational Infrastructure Support Program. DK receives salary support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre. The views expressed in this Personal View are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.
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The looming disaster of immunity passports and digital identity
A digital ID that proves immunity will raise serious human rights issues. And the failure of the digital ID industry to deal with the issues of exclusion, exploitation and discrimination puts the entire industry under question.
'Immunity passports' are a theoretical credential - most likely digital - that someone can prove that they have either had the virus and recovered, or have had a vaccination.
Immunity passports are being hyped as a solution to ending lockdowns around the world by actors including the proponents of digital identity; the digital identity industry; think-tanks; and the travel industry.
Yet there is currently no scientific basis for these measures, as highlighted by the WHO. The nature of what information would be held on an immunity passport is currently unknown.
The social risks of immunity passports are great: it serves as a route to discrimination and exclusion, particularly if the powers to view these passports falls on people's employers, or the police.
The digital identity industry - pushing their own products as immunity passport solutions - is failing to protect against these harms: they are interested in building wider digital identity systems, based on their pre-existing models, rather than developing a genuine solution to the risks of these passports.
By privacyinternational.org - 21st July 2020
Photo by Danielle Rice on Unsplash
Immunity Passports have become a much hyped tool to cope with this pandemic and the economic crisis. Essentially, with immunity passports those who are 'immune' to the virus would have some kind of certified document - whether physical or digital. This 'passport' would give them rights and privileges that other members of the community do not have.
This is yet another example of a crisis-response that depends on technology, as we saw with contact-tracing apps. And it is also yet another instance of trying to rapidly respond to complex problems, as governments did after 9/11, by reaching for identity systems.
Fundamentally, for identity system design form must follow function. Identity systems are complex systems that can alter the relationship between the individual, the state, and all the companies and agencies who are granted power in between.
Yet proponents of immunity passports do not yet know the extent of the problem they are solving. Companies selling their pre-existing digital identity solutions should be viewed with suspicion; this is not a problem that has been 'solved' as we have yet to define what the problem is.
In fact, the scientific validity/rationale of 'immunity' is still under question. It is premature to start designing a system without a better understanding of immunity. Crucial questions have to be answered first:
how and in what ways immunity to the virus is conveyed?
what a testing regime would look like? For example, is it home-based or does it require a lab? Is it something that can be rolled out at scale quickly to broad populations or is it only accessible to some?
how long does immunity last? and
what are the prospects for a vaccine, how long will it last, and how will that be deployed?
Without an understanding of these issues, it is not possible to design a system that both 'works' in terms of giving the information that's needed for public health reasons and for managing the next steps of measures to manage lockdowns including the associated economic and social strains associated, while at the same time protecting fundamental rights.
Once answered, then we will all know what problem the identity system is designed to solve. Without the knowledge of how immunity works, we cannot possibly yet say what the design should be.
And even if that is resolved, the risks to individuals and communities emerging from 'immunity passports' are severe. Below we explore all these issues.
Who is hyping the immunity passport 'solution'?
Travel firms and airports, governments, policy think-tanks, and the digital identity industry.
Here are some instances.
First, the proponents of digital identity as the solution to any problem you care to mention. The Executive Director of ID2020 in a paper entitled "Immunity Certificates: If We Must Have Them, We Must Do It Right", wrote: "With the deployment of immunity certificates systems becoming increasingly likely, we believe there is significant value to proactively exploring the concept and ensuring that adequate safeguards, both technical and regulatory, are implemented should such programs move forward." ID2020 is an alliance of organisations pushing for digital identity - including businesses like Microsoft and biometrics companies, as well as other actors like Accenture, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the vaccine alliance Gavi.
Second, the digital identity industry. The CEO of Yoti, a key digital identity market player, has made the claim that it is "technically simple" to move from their existing work in this area to providing immunity certificates. Yoti have released a 'Code of Practice' for the 'sharing of personal health credentials'. Unsurprisingly, Yoti's own existing app passes their own test with flying colours.
Third, the 'visionaries' are keen to get back into painting a world driven by identification. As Prime Minister of the Great Britain, Tony Blair spent years trying to institute a national identity register, only for it to fail and be destroyed. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has continued to push for this issue, taking one of the more extreme positions on immunity passports. They argue that a digital credential should be implemented prior to the development of accurate antibody testing, saying that a digital identity should be rolled-out immediately based on antigen testing, and be ready for if and when antibody testing becomes available. That would mean people could get a credential because they tested positive for the virus, rather than because they have some specific level of antibodies which could create an immune response.
Fourth, the travel industry. The influential airline trade body International Air Transport Association (IATA), does not currently support immunity passports on the basis of the current uncertain medical evidence. However, in their guidance on "Restarting Aviation" they also say that "In principle, we believe that immunity passports could play an important role in further facilitating the restart of air travel... At such time as the medical evidence supports the possibility of an immunity passport, we believe it is essential that a recognised global standard be introduced, and that corresponding documents be made available electronically." The decisions made about the aviation industry affect people even outside of the travel context: for example, the spread of biometrics on identity documents. Any developments in the travel field have to be interrogated for how they will affect the rights of travellers at airports and beyond, as well as the broader societal implications.
Another digital solution to Covid-19?
Digital identity companies are keen to position themselves as key players in the promotion of digital identity to be the 'solution' to effectively managing the easing of lockdown measures and containing the spread of the virus.
There's a good reason they are trying to take advantage of the pandemic. Generally, industry identity solutions have been languishing because they only really prosper when governments mandate them, so we are forced to overlook their inequities and weaknesses.
On the face of it, there's a degree of plausibility for the industry's claims: the focus of much work on identity has been ways for people to show others "verified credentials" - for example, a driving license or university degree issued by a trusted provider. These technologies often allow you to share a single attribute about yourself, rather than a whole identity document; for example, to show you're over 18 without having to reveal your date of birth. In the case of immunity passports, it would - most likely - be a question of having a test result (or, eventually, a vaccination) from a verified lab or provider. Those looking to see the credential would be able to trust that the certificate of 'immunity' was from a trusted source.
These systems often set themselves apart from state systems - like the model of Aadhaar in India, with it's single giant biometric database of over a billion people. However, industry's digital identity solutions are not necessarily any more privacy protecting than government systems, as the case of immunity passports makes stark.
Also, the claim that a test was valid from a trusted source would depend on the deployment of covid immunity testing. The integrity of the testing depends on science, economics, and politics; and the availability of tests will affect public trust and economic and social rights.
So they're selling the idea before they even know how it works
There are significant questions that need to be answered before the any country will be able to safely adopt immunity passports.
What is the current scientific understanding of the nature of immunity? This will shape how immunity passports are designed, implemented and deployed. In turn, it will also inform the risks to individuals, communities and society. The key arising concern is whether the digital identity industry is in a position to mitigate those risks, or will their contributions realise the dangers associated with immunity passports.
The effectiveness of 'immunity passports' has been questioned by leading authorities in health. Indeed, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been explicit about the current state of evidence: "[Some governments have suggested that the detection of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, could serve as the basis for an "immunity passport" or "risk-free certificate" that would enable individuals to travel or to return to work assuming that they are protected against re-infection. There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection."
Research from Imperial College London highlights the challenges in the testing of antibodies that would lead to 'immunity passports'. For instance, researchers identified that there are dangers present if non-immune people end up receiving a passport. They also noted that some presentations of the disease (for example, young people and those with mild symptoms) might not be able to qualify for a passport. They also reiterate the WHO's point that it remains unknown as to whether the presence of antibodies actually protects people from further infection.
It is also unknown as to how long any immunity actually lasts. Therefore any technical choice, such as immutable ledgers and blockchain would be inappropriate.
These uncertainties and variances makes immunity passports legally dubious. The conclusion of Matrix Chambers, a leading human rights firm in the UK, is that "we have seen no basis on which it could be said that profiling and immunity passports are strictly necessary, appropriate and proportionate to the objective of managing and monitoring the spread of COVID-19".
Even if we buy their hype, immunity passports are dangerous
Immunity passports brings together the worlds of identity and public health. While the goal may be to have an immunity passport system that is available to everyone, in practice this will likely be far from the case.
We've covered previously how patterns of historical exclusion are reflected in identity systems and the modern realities. It would be unprecedented for a combined system for identity and health system to not unfairly target or exclude people.
Health systems already exclude many people, or create unintentional hierarchies in society. Access to testing or a future vaccine will most likely follow the existing patterns of exclusion. Similarly, groups that look to avoid contact with the state will fear the uses to which their data may be put.
Some of these dynamics have already been raised in the tech responses to Covid-19. Concern over mission creep has already cropped up for, and other measures being deployed. In the context of contact-tracing apps, the World Health Organisation has warned that these measures should "not be used punitively or associated with security measures, immigration issues, or other concerns outside the realm of public health. Contact tracing activities should be available to all communities."
And again the chosen form of the identity system will have ramifications. As with contact tracing, some proposed immunity passport solutions are smartphone based, limiting access to only those who have these devices.
There's an increasingly rich body of work investigating the connection of health status to ID, and this urgently needs updating for public responses to Covid-19. For instance, in Kenya, a scheme to link HIV/AIDS treatment to biometrics was stopped by the affected populations out of fear of 'mission creep' - the data used for other purposes - as well as the risks surrounding data breaches. In India, there are reports that some stopped looking for treatment for HIV/AIDS after treatment was linked to the biometric identity system Aadhaar.
Diseases are stigmatising, and we've seen cases around the globe of hate-crime related to Covid-19. As the United National Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance said, "Political responses to the COVID-19 outbreak that stigmatise, exclude, and make certain populations more vulnerable to violence are inexcusable, unconscionable, and inconsistent with States' international human rights law obligations."
Then there are the emerging problems once the immunity passport system is deployed. Many dangers arise from the contexts within which proof of immunity status may be demanded. Key questions include:
Will it be required prior to economic participation, such as to work or enter shops?
Will people be stopped from doing something unless they can show their credential because it is a symbol of economic viability, e.g. from renting or loans?
Will people need to show their valid status in order to emerge, and in that case will enforcement involve showing your status to police at checkpoints? And
Will it become necessary for travel or passing through borders, and if so, which credentials and claims will be acceptable across borders?
Previously when identity systems were identified as solutions, few proponents considered these questions; and often they were counter-balanced with fear of terrorism or migration. If we build this new infrastructure, the inequities that will arise will shape societies for some time to come.
For instance, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change states that "private office buildings should have the right to require all staff to present a credential on entry". For those working in industries where it is not possible to 'work from home' - or those whose bosses don't offer that solution - then this is essentially saying that people would need an immunity passport in order to continue to be employed. Given that they also note "trains could operate at maximum capacity if these checks were in place", we are also talking about limiting the ability of people to travel to work - again, excluding people from employment.
The powers of the police, and the security services, in regard to this is an important area of concern. OnFido, an aspiring provide of immunity passports, has stated in internal documents that an immunity passport must be "recognisable to law enforcement and other agencies". But the exact powers of the police in this need careful consideration: we already know that police enforcing the lockdown are far more likely to fine BAME people than white people. Immunity passports could give the police and security services more powers to not only know information about our health, but also to stop people and demand proof of immunity -- in certain situations.
Policies that require people to show their status have left many broken lives behind. Whether it is Kenyan ethnic minority populations, the Windrush generation in Britain, or migrants in Chile, the damage identity policies have done should teach us important lessons about what to avoid when turning our attention to immunity passports. For example, demanding people show proof of entitlement to healthcare primarily effects those people who 'look foreign' as reported by frontline organisations working on migrants' rights to public services. Access to employment, health, and even access to public space could all be restricted, deepening the exclusion of disadvantaged groups.
Are we building an unprecedentedly fair identity system for Covid?
There's a litany of failed or discriminatory government ID initiatives across the world. But the question remains: can the 'digital identity industry' - the commercial players, and the proponents - lead to systems that are 'fit for purpose'?
Looking at the proposed solutions from companies and organisations that include OnFido, ID2020, Yoti, self-sovereign identity solutions and others, as well as the state of the industry more generally: do they provide a genuine solution? Do they provide the technical basis of an immunity passport system that will mitigate the deep societal harms that they risk?
No. And, no.
Actually, the answer is worse than 'no': it is not only that digital identity systems are failing to mitigate the harms, they are themselves the mechanism by which these harms occur. And as we explore below, fixing these problems would require extraordinary measures.
The perverse approach where the goal is the spread of digital identity
The digital identity components of an immunity passport is a means, not an end in itself. The goal of the immunity passport has to be its role in public health and the easing of restrictions surrounding the lockdown; its goal should not be the spread of 'digital identity'. That would be using the pandemic, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people across the world, to achieve an unrelated self-promotional goal.
It may be difficult to believe that an organisation would behave in this way, but there is precedent for some actors in the digital identity industry to see public health as a way of pushing for digital identities. For example, in September 2019 the ID2020 Alliance in Bangladesh explicitly tried to exploit vaccination programmes to advance their work: "Recognizing the opportunity for immunisation to serve as a platform for digital identity, this program leverages existing vaccination and birth registration operations to offer newborns a persistent and portable biometrically-linked digital identity." Leveraging essential public health work on vaccination to achieve the goal of taking the biometrics of people and rolling out digital identities is unacceptable. The resignation of one of ID2020's advisors, Elizabeth Renieris, has highlighted that this remains of deep concern at the time of Covid-19: as she wrote in her resignation letter: ""At this stage, I can no longer even describe what ID2020's mission is with any confidence....All I can perceive is a desire to promote decentralized identity solutions at all costs."
It is clear that this industry needs to be closely audited and monitored.
The routes to exclusion based on digital identity are many.
The proposed solutions are failing to deal with the diverse issues surrounding exclusion. One of the options under consideration in the UK from OnFidoreportedly involves a smartphone app, and requires the user to have an identity document (presumably, a passport or driving license.) This leads to multiple routes for exclusion. Not everyone has a passport, or a valid passport; and obtaining or renewing a passport in order to get an identity for a smartphone-based app identity seems like it is confounding many challenges.
Then there's the question of addressing those who don't have the right kind of phones. For example, ID2020 proposes a 'smartcard' for those who don't have a smartphone - essentially calling for an ID card for those without a smartphone.
Having what amounts to an ID card only for those who can't afford an expensive electronic device borders on the absurd. Firstly, it does nothing to solve other forms of exclusion - for example for those without access to other identity documents. Secondly, as we have argued for over twenty years, having a physical card is hardly a route to inclusion particularly when it is a stigmatising card for those who cannot afford a phone.
For this to work, dependencies on foundational documents couldn't be made to disadvantage people; and emerging identity infrastructure would have to be monitored and audited to ensure that exclusion doesn't arise. This type of work is unprecedented.
Solutions based on consent are not appropriate for this purpose.
Many of the digital identity solutions (including from startups, those promoted by [ID2020] (https://id2020.org/uploads/files/Technical-Requirements.pdf); and 'self-sovereign identities') are based on the idea that you are enabled to share and capable of sharing specific pieces of information with who you like, when you like. For example, using digital identity solutions you may share the fact you're over 18 but not your date of birth. However, this ignores the reality - identity transactions often have a power asymmetry. Do you really have a choice about what data to hand over to who when your employer is demanding to see your immunity papers? When access to goods, services, employment, travel, or any other vital part of life, is predicated on handing over data who is in a position to say no?
The case of "immunity passports" highlights how consent-based approaches are limited, and do not protect the individual or society from the harms of inappropriate 'immunity passport' checks. When our entire economic life is hinging on immunity, being able to choose and consent is a wilting right, that will disappear the moment it becomes important and valuable.
For this to work, the laws and realities around immunity passports would have to be closely monitored and audited, across the world -- this is currently beyond the means of any set of actors.
Exploitation of data and identities The other problem is what digital identity companies do with the data that they collect in the course of their business of providing identity services. For example, our work on one digital identity provider, Yoti, revealed how they are exploiting the images of people during their biometric enrolment, along with data from their uploaded identity documents. The opportunities for exploitation of user data in this way are huge, and potentially lucrative.
The industry is trying to show they are learning. For instance, Yoti's Code of Practice on the use of health data in a Yoti-like system prohibits the use of the data for advertising; but does not seem to prevent further abuses of the kind that Yoti have perpetrated in the past.
Data exploitation is common within smartphone apps. Even when we reviewed the UK government's Covid-19 contact-tracing app we found that it was leaking data to Microsoft. Our prior research found that many of the most popular apps were leaking data to Facebook.
For people to be protected, these apps in all the various settings would need to be audited and regularly monitored to ensure they aren't leaking data.
Function creep: Sleepwalking into a permanent solution
Rather than meeting the specific needs of an immunity passport system - whatever they turn out to be - what the digital identity industry is offering instead are digital identity solutions that go far beyond these needs. For example, Yoti is presenting it's pre-existing app as the answer to these issues; similarly, ID2020 has its own pre-existing set of technical standards.
The danger emerging from this is that, if we had a immunity passport system that is being used by a significant proportion of the population, after the crisis - it becomes a more general digital identity for people, by default and through inertia.
But that would be dangerous: the middle of a crisis is not the time for the necessary processes of deliberation and debate, policy and regulatory scrutiny, civil society and public participation, and careful establishment of system specifications and requirements.
In some countries, it can undermine the democratic processes for deciding the future of digital identity. In the UK, for instance, there is ongoing work by the Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport on what the future of digital identity will look like, with a consultation taking place last year. With the process on hold as many civil servants have been reassigned to the coronavirus response, it is vital that the process of debate and consultation continue. Otherwise, we risk sleep-walking into a solution that lacks the necessary checks and balances. We've seen this during Covid-19 with national, centralised identity projects: the Jamaican government, for instance, has expressed the need to roll-out their ID scheme as a matter of urgency, despite it being found to be unconstitutional in April last year.
For this to work fairly, immunity passport infrastructure would have to be dismantled as soon as its mission is complete, i.e. at the end of this pandemic. It would be practically unprecedented for an identity system to be dismantled. Instead, the tendency would be for it to be turned into a more general 'digital identity'.
Conclusion: Coronavirus and the future of digital identity
Digital identity and immunity passports seem like a natural fit, and part of a comprehensive response to this pandemic.
We are all unprepared to do what it takes to make this work, however, without extensive abuses arising. In fact, digital identity may actually extend the risks of societal harms that come along with immunity passports. The push for their pre-existing solutions reveals an industry interested in pushing their own agenda, rather than a solution to the crisis.
We should also take note of what this failure of the industry means for digital identity in the longer-term: it is, after all, not only immunity passports that can be misused. The issues of immunity passports reflect the issues with digital identity more generally. The failings on immunity passports are failings that run deep in our current digital identity landscape.
Moving forward, it is clear that - at the moment - immunity passports do not meet the necessary and proportionate test. As our understanding of the nature of immunity changes, this may change - but only for a very limited number of use-cases, and even these need careful consideration. It is a deeply challenging area, and it may very well become the case that there are no use-cases where the benefits outweigh the harms. These decisions have to be primarily made in the interests of the most vulnerable members of society: those who are worst-hit by the pandemic and who look likely to be worse-served by an immunity passport solution.
But we must also remember this moment when we look towards the future of digital identity more generally: we were let down. There needs to be a new approach going forward, one that emphasises how the harms caused by digital identity can be mitigated The most important message for the industry is, perhaps, that you don't have to provide a solution to every conceivable use-case for identity. This pandemic should form a check on the hubris of the digital identity industry.
Decision-making around immunity passports must follow and respect the current epidemiological evidence on immunity and the Coronavirus/Covid-19.
Immunity passports should be withdrawn and the policy and tech infrastructure removed after the pandemic.
Any decision to deploy immunity passports must clearly articulate the scope and purpose in primary legislation to ensure the process is subject to open, inclusive process.
The processing of personal data associated with immunity passports must align with national and international obligations on data protection and the right to privacy and uphold data protection principles of fairness, transparency and lawfulness, purpose specification, minimisation (necessity and proportionality), accuracy, storage limitation, and confidentiality and integrity.
Consideration must be given to other types of harms and threats including exclusion and discrimination as well as targeting and profiling, and meaningful safeguards, monitoring, and auditing are established.
The uses of immunity passports must be clearly articulated, and they must be firewalled from being used for other purposes.
The design and tendering process must be open and transparent to public scrutiny.
Measures must be taken to prevent immunity passports becoming the foundation for longer term digital identity systems.
To ensure against abuse, targeting, and exclusion, the use of foundation identity documents for immunity passports must be avoided.
Industry must commit to not be leveraging an immunity passport to broader digital identity solutions, to promote their own services and products.
Industry must commit to not deploy any technological solution until it is supported by the epidemiological evidence.
The development of new models of digital identity must be separated from immunity passports.
International bodies, alliances and think-tanks
Organisations working on global health such as the WHO must continue to provide advice on the topic of immunity, as well as being conscious of the deep human rights impacts of these types of measures.
Organisations and alliances working on the essential work of vaccines should not also be proponents of digital identities.
More research is required on the exclusion and targeting of populations in public health and in identity systems and their overlaps.
Corona Crisis Control – Digital Identification For All
By Jacob Nordangård - 06. April, 2020
A digital identity for every citizen on the globe has been identified by the World Bank and World Economic Forum as an important part in the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The right to a legal identity is a part of Global Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). An effort to achieve this is the ID2020 Alliance. A Public-Private Partnership between United Nations agencies, World Economic Forum, Foundations and Big Tech-corporations. Their grand goal do however raise some concerns about loss of privacy, mass surveillance and population control. It comes with a price that might have severe implications for the freedom of man.
ID2020 Summit: Harnessing Digital Identity for the Global Community on May 20, 2016. (Photo: www.JeffreyHolmes.com)
Free picture () from https://torange.biz/fx/against-vaccination-disease-effect-light-26921
As it turns out – Rockefeller Foundations view the crisis as an opportunity to change the system. The transformation might hurt but in the end their promised digital Utopia will arise out of the ashes of the obsolete old system. What now plays out is a part of a centuries old population control agenda that was initiated by the Rockefeller foundations and now are carried out by close partners like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (an agenda described and analysed in my book Rockefeller – Controlling the Game).
Bill had deep knowledge on what he was talking about. The European Commission presented 24 May 2019 a roadmap for the implementation of actions on strengthened cooperation against vaccine-preventable diseases. The goal was a common vaccination card/passport compatible with electronic immunization systems for EU citizens to 2022 (as well as countering vaccine hesitancy – the anti-vaccination movement).
The measures to deal with the pandemic opens up for the ID2020 certification, and in the end for a global digital citizenship – a fundamental pillar in the technocratic smart society (4IR) pushed by World Economic Forum to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
In the utopian smart society that is currently being built, digital identity will be required in order to access all basic human services like healthcare, e-commerce, travel, financial services, and social platforms. Without it, you cannot participate. This system can then be connected to the "Blockchain-enabled citizen loyalty and reward platforms" that World Economic Forum has foreseen to come. This will, in their view, bring "peace and order" to the world. Just like the Social Credit system in China.
Smart phone devices, smart cards and biometrics has been used in most earlier projects for identification, but as a smart phones and cards can be stolen or lost, it is not far-fetched to expect that demands for more secure identification methods, like smart tattoos and implants, will become more prevalent as we move closer to 2030. This is a development that World Economic Forum has also predicted in their vision for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Smart technology devices will, during the coming decade, be integrated with our bodies for behaviour monitoring, location data, health functions and real-time identification (Klaus Schwab, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Shift 1: Implantable Technologies).
Internet of Everything. Source: Reimagining Digital Identity: A Strategic Imperative
Bichip (https://www.bichip.com/)
Society 5.0. The goal of connecting the SDGs to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Picture from Keidanren.
Under Cover of COVID
Philippines to Roll Out National ID as Surveillance State Spreads Across the World
The COVID-19 crisis and worldwide lockdowns have afforded governments across the planet the opportunity to implement measures of population control that were unimaginable only a few years ago and relegated to Hollywood's most dystopian productions.
by Raul Diego - 14. October 2020
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the central organism tasked with collecting, compiling, and analyzing data in the southeast Asian nation, has begun a large-scale, house-to-house canvassing operation to preregister 9 million heads of households and other adults in the country's lowest income brackets.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the flagship program will initially be carried out in regions where COVID cases are low, and only on a voluntary basis. Despite reportedly widespread support for the new system (upwards of 70 percent), concerns over privacy have dogged the identification system since it was mandated by the Philippine Identification System Act and signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte in 2018.
The legislation, originally drafted by a former head of the Philippine National Police, will include information already held by the PSA as well as the eventual inclusion of biometric data, such as iris scans and full fingerprint sets. Filipino researcher Josh Malonzo, from the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, tweeted out an all-caps warning on Monday about how the national ID program will dovetail with the highly controversial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, resulting in de facto mass surveillance.
Much of the justification for the national ID system revolves around efforts to consolidate the country's 46 existing government-issued IDs and facilitating payments across commercial sectors. The central bank of the Philippines is among the major institutions pushing for the new system, which it hopes will increase the number of Filipinos with bank accounts from the current 29 percent to 70 percent by 2023.
Other powerful supporters of the nascent ID system are two of the nation's biggest telecom companies, PLDT and Globe Telecom, who have been trying to introduce e-payments into a country where the majority of the population still prefers to use cash for day-to-day transactions, mirroring similar initiatives by banking and transnational corporations in other developing nations.
The preregistration period will run from October 12, 2020, until December 30 and overlap slightly with the beginning of the full registration process, slated to begin in November. The current chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Gen. Camilo Cascolan, instructed his charges to coordinate with the PSA and Local Government Units (LGUs), to carry out the pre-registration process, which will begin in the country's rural areas and move on to the metropolitan regions next year. The PSA aims to enroll 108 million Filipinos by the end of 2022.
Working excuses
The momentum for a national ID system is not stopping at the borders of what the financial industry calls "emerging markets", however. In the United States, legislation for a new national ID is currently sitting in the U.S. Congress awaiting passage. Introduced by U.S. Congressman Bill Foster on September 11, 2020, the Improving Digital Identity Act of 2020, avails itself of many of the same justifications used in the Philippines to generate consensus for a national ID, such as the coronavirus crisis, which has "exposed the lack of a comprehensive digital identity strategy," in the United States, according to the bill's advocates.
Nevertheless, in a country where digital payments are already ubiquitous, the raison d'etre used in the Philippines – namely, the desire to bring millions of unbanked Filipinos into the banking system – is not necessarily going to work as well in America, where the threat of cyberattacks and cybersecurity issues, in general, are instead cited as the top reason for the implementation of a national ID system, featuring many of the same biometric features Duterte's compatriots will soon be compelled to provide to their government.
Foster's bill quotes the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Treasury Department (FinCEN), Kenneth A. Blanco, to make its case by blaming identity theft as the root cause "behind much of the fraud and cybercrime affecting our nation today." Just a few weeks later, the infamous FinCEN leaks conveniently revealed the global extent of fraudulent activities engaged in by the world's largest financial institutions, covered by this author.
Pincer movement
The commander of the Philippines' Joint Task Force COVID Shield, Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, reflected this new reality when he revealed to the Manila Bulletin that the implementation of the national ID system has "always been factored in during the meetings of the National Task Force on COVID-19" and other health agencies.
In the United States, such considerations revolve around the effects COVID-19-related issues are having on unemployment agencies, which have been reportedly targeted for fraud through cyberspace. The same justifications for an unprecedented expansion of the surveillance state are being used in Canada, whose own national ID system is also relying on emergency measures brought on by the pandemic to push through draconian tracking and personal data collection technologies.
Implementation in the United States will also be aided by the imposed obsolescence of previous forms of ID, such as the drivers' licenses currently held by 62 percent of Americans, but which the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), has announced will no longer be valid to travel by plane domestically or internationally by the end of 2021.
Feature image | MintPress News
Raul Diego is a MintPress News Staff Writer, independent photojournalist, researcher, writer and documentary filmmaker.
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New DARPA-Funded Tech Promises to Diagnose COVID-19 Through Implantable Biochip
A new mRNA tool developed at Stanford and funded DARPA promise to diagnose COVID-19 through an implantable biochip.
The POC (point-of-care) diagnostics market stands at about $18.8 billion globally, according to recent market trends, and is expected to grow by a third to $24.1 billion this year and projected to explode by 2024 to $46.7 billion.
These Strange Things Are Happening Worldwide While You Are Quarantined 2020
•Apr 3, 2020
We have known for a long time that we were living in the end times for several reasons, but the things that are happening behind our backs at this moment and time, confirms it without a doubt! A New World Order Is entering the stage, the warnings are all over the internet. But we should not be surprised this is something the globalists have planned for centuries.
This will not be the typical video you are used to watch on this channel, but I feel that I need to share the information and warn you, it has come to my knowledge that there are some strange things going on right now while we are asked to stay at home. And I can not simply watch from the sideline and do nothing about this. I've been looking into this for a week now.
Therefor I will use the power of this channel to spread this information. You can make whatever you want with the information, but please consider praying about it, if there is any truth to this then let the truth shine bright and overcome the darkness and lies.
Remember to not fear, remember who is coming on a white horse with all his saints to judge the world! ALSO Don't take anybody's word for it, do your own research!
Corona Virus -FEMA and CDC Meeting at UPS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uedyZ...
AGENDA 21 Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TRso...
Coronavirus Caused By 5G? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFN5L...
When Trauma Based Mind-Control Goes Global (The Scariest Movie Ever Channel) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY4VB...
Madonna, Quavo - Eurovision Song Contest 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG3Wk...
What Bill Gates is afraid of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AEMK...
The next outbreak? We're not ready | Bill Gates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Af6b...
Event 201 Pandemic Exercise: Highlights Reel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoLw-...
Fema Coffins on the way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdW5M...
Martial Law is Here!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUAMO...
IT'S Happening!!! Martial Law 2020 (What the News is not telling you!)(Reloaded) ATTN:DESCRIPTION! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18tma.
GERMANY TURNS INTO A CORONA POLICE STATE
OPERATION LOCK-STEP
THE PEOPLE STAND UP
CORONA UNTERSUCHUNG TAG 59
End Discussions on Masks - the Evidence is Clear
Masks Demasked
WE ARE BEING PLAYED & PLAGUED
The Plan To Control The World
Der Blockwart – Deutschland ein Lügenmärchen
WARP SPEED AND SURVEILLANCE
WHO rows back on the PCR test
Science: Masks Are Neither Effective Nor Safe
Totale Überwachung
UN, Soros & Gates in bed with China on COVID Drug
Frankreich steht auf gegen Macron und COVID