Re: California Digital Vaccine Record based on VCs

Hello all,

This EFF article 
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/decoding-californias-new-digital-vaccine-records-and-potential-dangers> 
explains the California digital vaccination card in terms a layman can 
understand.

Singapore's HealthPass is based on the same Verifiable Credentials and 
FHIR data, but personal data is not in the QR and the VC document itself 
is anchored to a blockchain.  It seems to me that Singapore's HealthCert 
is lightweight, tamperproof and much better than California's system.

The Vaccine Credential Initiative (promoting Common Pass) and IATA 
(promoting Travel Pass) have made it seem that a wallet and a digital 
identity are required in order have a viable border health clearance 
mechanism based on Verifiable Credentials. That is certainly not the case.

I was interviewed by a Singapore radio station this week on the topic of 
'vaccine passports' (a misnomer) and they kept reiterating questions 
about what's holding up the adoption of digital identity.  I had to 
explain that, while digital identity does enable selective sharing with 
greater privacy, health clearances for travel do not require travellers 
to adopt a digital identity.  Authorities will continue to check the 
traveller's passport, visas and other identity documents at border 
checkpoints.

Perhaps, as the EFF article states, the real purpose of the California 
digital vaccination card is to screen folks entering restaurants, gyms 
and other establishments serving the public.  In Singapore we have a 
different (and centralised) system for that, known as SafeEntry.  It is 
electronically tied to the Ministry of Health database.

Regards, Bill Claxton (williamc@nextid.com <mailto:williamc@nextid.com>)
LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Slack, Skype, Twitter or Gmail: wmclaxton
SG Voice, Text or Whatsapp: +65-9012-4327
US Voice, Text or Voicemail: +1-415-797-7348


On 6/25/2021 5:26 AM, Adrian Gropper wrote:
> Scott,
>
> Some of the points in this post may be helpful: 
> https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2021/05/05/design-considerations-vaccine-credentials/ 
> <https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2021/05/05/design-considerations-vaccine-credentials/> 
>
>
> There's nothing I can think of that crosses more contexts than 
> "Vaccination Passports". Health, employment, freedom, community, 
> digital platforms, politics. I find most of the technical and 
> governance discussions about this to be laughably oversimplified and 
> overly driven by business interests.
>
> I'm happy to help,
>
> - Adrian
>
> On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 11:19 AM Scott Gallant <scott@scottgallant.com 
> <mailto:scott@scottgallant.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Team.
>
>     unrelated but related sidebar...
>
>     A privacy conference next week is asking for 'Vaccination
>     Passport' material for an audience of ~3k, with assets/recordings
>     available thereafter to all. A lot of the audience will be
>     decisionmakers/authorities that are right now pressured and asked
>     how/when/if their org should checks for their
>     staff/consumers/students for vax and that want more info to help
>     them decide.
>
>       * TARGET: US corporate Privacy experts, some CIO/CISO types,
>         most more policy oriented than technology geeks. Mid-large
>         size orgs.
>       * NEED: eligible for distribution, simple (1-2 slide), ideally
>         brand agnostic materials consumable to the noted non-geeky
>         audience that tells a history of VC/creds and W3C, the
>         wild-west status of networks adopting and not adopting either
>         public/private networks, and a few named examples of different
>         types of health/vaccination passes/ids.
>
>     ... anyone interested in helping/providing, or know of open
>     resources that might help? There is no pay but I CAN promote the
>     work of this group.
>
>     Cheers,
>     Scott
>
>     On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 1:11 PM Heather Vescent
>     <heathervescent@gmail.com <mailto:heathervescent@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         May be of interest:
>         https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-18/california-unveils-system-to-provide-digital-covid-19-vaccine-records
>         <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-18/california-unveils-system-to-provide-digital-covid-19-vaccine-records>
>
>         SMART Health Card Framework:
>         https://vci.org/about#smart-health
>         <https://vci.org/about#smart-health>
>         To achieve this purpose, the founding members of VCI™ have
>         collaborated to develop (1) the SMART Health Cards Framework
>         Implementation Guide based on the World Wide Web Consortium
>         (W3C) Verifiable Credential and Health Level 7 (HL7) SMART on
>         FHIR standards, and (2) the SMART Health Cards: Vaccination &
>         Testing Implementation Guide.
>
>         If you are in California, you can get your vaccine record
>         here: https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/
>         <https://myvaccinerecord.cdph.ca.gov/>
>         (The system seems delayed for me.)
>
>         -- 
>         Heather Vescent <http://www.heathervescent.com/>
>         Co-Chair, Credentials Community Group @W3C
>         <https://www.w3.org/community/credentials/>
>         President, The Purple Tornado, Inc <https://thepurpletornado.com/>
>         Author, The Secret of Spies <https://amzn.to/2GfJpXH>
>         Author, The Cyber Attack Survival Manual
>         <https://www.amazon.com/Cyber-Attack-Survival-Manual-Apocalypse/dp/1681886545/>
>         Author, A Comprehensive Guide to Self Sovereign Identity
>         <https://ssiscoop.com/>
>
>         @heathervescent <https://twitter.com/heathervescent> | Film
>         Futures <https://vimeo.com/heathervescent> | Medium
>         <https://medium.com/@heathervescent/> | LinkedIn
>         <https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathervescent/> | Future of
>         Security Updates
>         <https://app.convertkit.com/landing_pages/325779/>
>