> Will government IT systems have fewer glitches than FAANG digital identity systems?
Glitches? Most likely. However, with govt services one can talk to someone after a short predictible bureaucartic tango, unlike faceless cvasi nonexistent customer support that one needs to draw attention to their case on twitter or some other social media, and that if they are somewhat important and their case is being talked about a lot there. John Doe whose account got a random takedown for no reason can wait indefinitely...
What's the democratic process by which taxpayers consented to the exclusion of those same taxpayers from the cities and society funded by their taxes? There are many questions about the lack of science behind these policies of exclusion, even if we ignore the tragic history of previous ill-conceived attempts to segregate society based on identity, digital or otherwise. If we're going to partition society along "essential" lines, should the same be done to identify "essential" taxes?
A printed paper/card that is uniquely associated with a digital database is still a digital identity, and subject to a wide range of glitches, including proof of biometrics to access a portal where the card can be printed.
Do you know how much global business is conducted in restaurants? It's practically part of the workplace for sales professionals. Exclusion from restaurants means exclusion from work for some people. Zoom is not a replacement for business meetings that benefit from face-to-face negotiation.
Remember what history teaches about "people making lists" - it never stops with one list, or one group of list-makers. Today's list-maker can be tomorrow's list-member. There is a reason that most segregated societies have failed.
Basically, if a person chooses not to get the vaccine, they also choose to live under the same restrictions that were imposed on everyone half a year ago, before the vaccinations started rolling out.
Guess what, if you make choices that negatively affect the safety of others in society, society decides to impose negative consequences for you. Same as we have prisons, speeding tickets, fines for polluting, etc.
And as others have pointed out, none of those consequences depend on the digital identity, just on choice not to get vaccinated.
In Europe, this is not true, since recovered immunity is recognized for a pass.
Unlike half a year ago, we now know that Covid-recovered people are least likely to be infected or transmitted. We know that vaccinated people can be both infected (without symptoms even) and transmitting, depending on the time since their last injection.
If the goal is to prevent infection and transmission, we would be limiting public participation to those recovered or with a recent negative test. It's meaningless to speak about vax or unvax, what matters is immune or non-immune. Everyone vaccinated who has never had Covid can only gain immunity (note: not "protection" as defined by CDC) by being infected and recovering. The vaccine reduces the chance of severe illness from that infection.
The latest UK medical data for the week of 7th Oct reports possible reinfection on page 18 as less than one percent of 5.9 million, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/.... That's the upper end of the estimate. The strictest, provable numbers for reinfection, based on genetic sequencing, are under 300 cases = 0.005%.
Intramuscular vaccines are explicitly stated by the CDC and manufacturers as not providing sterilizing immunity. They only provide protection via serum/blood antibodies, against serious illness. Recovery from Covid infection (of vax or unvax) provides nasal/mucosal immunity that can stop future infections in the upper respiratory tract. Future nasal vaccines may provide sterilizing immunity, but injections into the deltoid muscle do not.
Other data sources on reinfection would be appreciated.
In some countries, digital identity accounts are now required to buy food, https://txti.es/covid-pass/images.
Will government IT systems have fewer glitches than FAANG digital identity systems?