Give pause before you raise a glass to the prospect of a vaccine passport

theguardian.com

10 points·curmudgeon22··3 comments

> The UK has already toyed with national ID cards. It rejected them in 2010. As Theresa May, then home secretary, explained in 2010: “This isn’t just about cost savings, it’s actually about the principle, it’s about getting the balance right between national security and civil liberties, and that’s what the new coalition government is doing.”

Off-topic, but what is the difference between a passport and an ID card, in terms of civil liberties?

Passports are optional while national ID card would be required and likely issued at birth. People tend to have an aversion to things that are required rather than recommended. Also, while passports are in theory only used when travelling across borders, ID cards would almost certainly be used domestically.

Personally I don't think ID cards are a huge threat to civil liberties - here in America Social Security cards basically already serve the same purpose, for example - but I can see how easy it is to draw that conclusion about a mandatory program to give every citizen something the government can use to identify them.

Todays govt collects your info versus tomorrows govt may not like you very much.

Thats a very large risk no?

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