This isn't some "oopsie" oversight on the part of governments spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to market the vaccines. They want fraud to be easy and commonplace to build in the justification for putting the info in a centralized database that links to your smartphone.
Police have already used our contact tracing app to make arrests. They must be drooling over the very real potential of all Australians having to keep them updated on our locations in perpetuity.
When I visited NYC for a few days, I picked up a Pfizer vaccine and was amused that they gave me the little certificate card to fill out by myself, before I went to another line to get the shot.
How is it that the US and Australia with all their resources as well as high tech companies are unable to setup a privacy respecting forgery proof system [1] when tiny countries have no problem doing it. The code is even open source. [2]
You live in a country that has your name and your birthdate on file for ID, taxes, you presumably have health insurance that already knows you have the vaccine - the EU system as it is right now is designed to prevent those entities from collecting more information than that.
Not to detract from your overall point - because it's a great question - but I feel that calling this system "forgery proof" only tells half the story.
Presumably public-key cryptography is how these certificates are signed and verified, which is essential for sure. But, a human is still required to verify that the information in the certificate matches some other ID, which could be easily forged. Drivers licenses and student ID cards are well known examples of such.
I think it's great that the system was designed to be privacy respecting. However with a bit of skepticism I raise the question - will this system stop anyone besides the most unmotivated of forgers? Perhaps it's still a win, but I think it's a question that deserves pondering.
> Besides the person’s first and last names, date of birth and a certificate number, the COVID certificate contains details of their COVID-19 vaccination, recovery, or negative PCR or rapid antigen test.
> Thanks to the electronic signature of the Swiss Confederation, this makes the COVID certificate forgery-proof and guarantees that it is genuine.
> the COVID Certificate Check app shows the person doing the check the name and date of birth of the certificate holder and whether the COVID certificate is valid.
> The person doing the check must then compare the name and date of birth with an ID document (e.g. passport, ID card, driving licence, residence permit, student ID card or SwissPass) to make sure that the certificate was issued for this person.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 33.8 ms ] thread[1] https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-...
[2] https://github.com/admin-ch/CovidCertificate-Documents
How is this a lot of reduced privacy?
Presumably public-key cryptography is how these certificates are signed and verified, which is essential for sure. But, a human is still required to verify that the information in the certificate matches some other ID, which could be easily forged. Drivers licenses and student ID cards are well known examples of such.
I think it's great that the system was designed to be privacy respecting. However with a bit of skepticism I raise the question - will this system stop anyone besides the most unmotivated of forgers? Perhaps it's still a win, but I think it's a question that deserves pondering.
> Besides the person’s first and last names, date of birth and a certificate number, the COVID certificate contains details of their COVID-19 vaccination, recovery, or negative PCR or rapid antigen test.
> Thanks to the electronic signature of the Swiss Confederation, this makes the COVID certificate forgery-proof and guarantees that it is genuine.
> the COVID Certificate Check app shows the person doing the check the name and date of birth of the certificate holder and whether the COVID certificate is valid.
> The person doing the check must then compare the name and date of birth with an ID document (e.g. passport, ID card, driving licence, residence permit, student ID card or SwissPass) to make sure that the certificate was issued for this person.