Vaccine passport firm says system could be 'redeployed' as a national ID card
telegraph.co.uk
telegraph.co.uk
If people are used to proving their health status on an app to go to a restaurant or football match, it will be hard for them to object if the app is extended to also prove that they are in the country legally and aren't wanted by the police, for example. Such a feature would still be useful even after the pandemic, so the system will never be dismantled.
If a business asks for a customer's vaccination status, don't they then need to comply with HIPAA with regards to having that data?
No, it doesn't, at least not as you seem to understand “health privacy”. It provides privacy of health information within certain business relationships (mostly, between patient, provider, insurer and certain parties contractually tied into relations ancillary to those on the provider and insurer side.)
> If a business asks for a customer's vaccination status, don't they then need to comply with HIPAA with regards to having that data?
No, HIPAA doesn't protect health information the patient provides to businesses outside of the provision and financing of health care.
Moreover, germane to this UK article about a firm involved in the UK vaccine passport and its marketing its system as adaptable to be a UK national ID after a previous plan for a UK national ID had been scrapped, HIPAA is a US law that doesn't have any force in the UK.