Jennifer O’Connell: Data privacy vs week on Greek beach?

Is a vaccine passport a fast-track to freedom or a step towards an unequal two-tier Ireland? Do you hear the words and think “at last, a ticket off the damp rock” or “there goes my right to non-discrimination, freedom of movement, privacy, equality and bodily integrity”?

As with everything Covid-related, there are no shortage of strong views on either side. The EU wants a digital green certificate in place by the end of June to allow travel for people who have been vaccinated, recovered from Covid, or who have tested negative. The UK – whose default operating speed lately is breakneck – is reportedly planning an “express launch” as early as May 17th.

On the less enthusiastic end of the spectrum is the World Health Organisation, which is concerned that those who have not yet been vaccinated might be unfairly disadvantaged by a passport system. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has warned that it "may lead to a significant and unfair encroachment on the right to freedom of movement". It warns that "like all surveillance systems, [it] will be extremely difficult to roll back once introduced".

The official line from Government is that it supports the EU's proposal for a passport system, but actual plans don't seem to amount to much more than the usual round of thinking-out-loud by Ministers. Tánaiste Leo Varadkar would like to see vaccine certs used for hospitality and live events, but acknowledges that "may be months away". Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney said EU green passports would be up and running by June, but we shouldn't book flights just yet. The Department of Health responded to a query by referring to EU plans. Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs Thomas Byrne, who is one of a group here working on green certs, said there might be some "technical work" needed on the certificate of recovery end of things. Clearly, the biggest challenge for a country which still uses paper, pens and Excel spreadsheets to track Covid outbreaks is not going to be public acceptance.

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‘Personal freedom’

The fears about civil liberties are perfectly valid, but as we inch towards the end of the longest and most dispiriting lockdown anywhere – no, there’s no data to measure the relative spirit-sapping effects of lockdowns, but just look around you – they feel decidedly academic. Most of us have a much more pragmatic view of what constitutes “personal freedom” than we did a year ago. I wrote a column last March in which I worried about the erosion of civil liberties that might come as Covid normalised mass surveillance. As technology advances, I fretted, it never becomes less invasive and it never demands less of us.

None of those fears materialised, mostly because the authorities couldn’t get their act together to trace even the movements of those who tested positive more than 48 hours earlier, yet alone oversee a programme of mass surveillance of citizens. These days, you’d almost feel nostalgic for a time when someone said “personal freedom” and you thought “tracking cookies”. Freedom now means hugging a recently bereaved friend in a different part of the country, or being able to have some people around for a barbecue without feeling like a criminal.

Selling vaccine certs to the public isn’t going to be the issue: I suspect many of us would cheerfully sacrifice our data privacy and right to bodily integrity for a week on a Greek beach. A much more significant obstacle is likely to be the logistical one. Here, our track record doesn’t bode well. Fourteen months on, we’re still talking about “pilot testing” antigen tests, with no sign of us actually deploying them in schools or other public settings. It took us nearly a year to start retrospective contact tracing. We can’t seem to stop people walking out of our soft border quarantine, and the politicians who signed off on the system don’t even agree on who should be in there. The idea that a digital vaccine cert is just “weeks away” may be a tad optimistic.

Cosseted Europeans

Still, other countries have proven that it can be done. In Israel, a "green pass" allows you to access gyms, hospitality and cultural events. The Danish "coronapas" is an app which allows people who have been vaccinated or recovered from the disease to get into football stadiums, bars and museums. It is linked to the Danish ID system and the yellow health card through a barcode that contains citizens' ID details . . . and yes, you can see the challenges ahead for Ireland.

Stepping back a bit from the logistical challenges and the moral objections, there's something unedifying about the sight of cosseted Europeans tying themselves in knots over vaccine certs, when there are swathes of the world unable to access vaccines for their most vulnerable. In India, where only 1 per cent of the population is vaccinated and it will take another eight years and nine months to reach herd immunity, oxygen cylinders are being looted out of hospital storerooms, and crematoriums in Gujarat are melting in the heat generated by non-stop funerals. In some places, funeral directors have reverted to wood pyres, reports the Hindustan Times, "to manage the rush of bodies".

Covid vaccines have already created a two-tier world, and it has nothing to do with passports. High-income countries representing 16 per cent of the world's population have hoovered up about half of the total vaccine supply. Worrying about whether you'll get the Pfizer jab or will be lumped with the AstraZeneca one, or fretting about what the Government might do with your data, or demanding clarity on when you'll get back to a gig or an airport or the pub are the literal definition of first-world problems.