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Comment by TazeTSchnitzel | Hacker News Reader

COVID vaccination certificates are nothing interesting. My EU passport has my fingerprints and my face on the integrated chip and that's all going to be uploaded to some massive Schengen database. Half the websites I use in this country know my personal identity number and many interactions require ID. A certificate saying I got a jab is nothing to all this, and doesn't enable any interesting tracking that wasn't already happening.

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It merely normalises another means of control, and sets a behavioural precedent for similar such restrictions and documents in the future. As always the problem usually isn't with the very first use of anything, but what governments think they can get away with after testing the waters.

So does a Drivers License.

It is without precedent to have to show a vaccine pass to enter cafes in human history. I'm confident that we actually have set an entirely new precedent with them, and it's not a good one.

> A certificate saying I got a jab is nothing to all this, and doesn't enable any interesting tracking that wasn't already happening.

Do you have to provide your passport to every shop, bus, train, etc that you use? There is a difference between monitoring your id when you travel between nations and being monitored everywhere.

If I want to rent a car, I have to provide my driver's license. Any time I do something that might be risky to the person providing the service, I have to provide evidence that reduces the risk they are assuming. When cars become self-driving, I will no longer have to provide a driver's license, and when the pandemic became endemic, people no longer had to provide proof of vaccination. The fear-mongering about slippery slopes is completely unfounded.

I tried to get a COVID finger prick antibody test while paying cash. The Kroger 'Little Clinic' insisted on ID and photocopying it. I refused and asked to see the written notice and privacy policy. They called store security on me. Apparently eveyone else complies.

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