New Vaccination Monitoring and Reporting Requirements Present Problems, DeleteMe Warns

BOSTON, Sept. 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- After the Biden administration announced vaccine mandates that could cover 100 million Americans, privacy experts at DeleteMe from Abine (The Online Privacy Company) warn that providing proof of vaccination will face steep challenges, raising new privacy concerns due to new reporting requirements.

Data Shows Mobile Health Passports Face Deployment Complications and Pushback

Prior to the announcement, wide-scale deployment of mobile health passports (known as "vaccine passports'') faced significant challenges. Across states, there is still no standardized method of documenting vaccination status that is easily shareable with third parties. Worse, there is still a booming cottage industry currently forging paper vaccination receipts.

Early findings by DeleteMe revealed that only 4% received any form of a digital receipt among the vaccinated.

Further, research by DeleteMe shows tepid willingness to adopt vaccine passports, with 47% of Americans supporting the implementation of health passports, 39% in opposition, and the remaining 14% are on the fence about the new technology. Older generations were more skeptical than young Americans by a thin margin, while those in opposition cited "Privacy Concerns" as a top objection.

"Willingness to 'show status' has declined along with the perception of public risk," says DeleteMe CEO Rob Shavell. "With an ever-growing share of the population vaccinated, the perceived necessity for 'proof' has diminished, at least before these new requirements from the administration."

In fact, over the weekend, UK health officials reversed plans for their own vaccine passport system, with Health Secretary Sajid Javid adding that he "instinctively does not like the idea of people having to show passports to do basic things."

New Privacy Concerns Emerge

DeleteMe further advises that proposed mechanisms of "enforcement" raise new privacy problems, creating a de facto new regime in which employers will be required to act as "big brother" for the federal government. And these changes, while touted as temporary, are likely to stay in force for quite some time.

"The claim is that the measures are authorized under temporary, emergency authority. But the likelihood is that when new 'safety' regimes are put in place, they tend to outlast emergencies," cautions John Gilmore, DeleteMe Head of Research. "The same was said about new TSA screening measures to combat terrorism, and those have never gone away."

While the outlines of the mandate seem relatively straightforward, implementation and monitoring for compliance will bring a myriad of new systems for employee tracking. Eventually, there will be areas where these processes receive opposition under existing laws.

"The fact that the single largest federal workers union has already signaled an intention to 'negotiate' how rules are applied suggests that implementation of consistent standards may be poor," adds Gilmore.

The monitoring and enforcement regime presents a new complex problem that Americans should be prepared to fight back against because agencies and private companies will have to report vaccine status, or face hefty fines.

"Increasingly, people are forced to share more personal information with more parties to have access to basic societal infrastructure. While the current pandemic may be a good reason to do so for public health, public policy to protect individual privacy has lagged as demands for private information have expanded exponentially," adds Shavell. "That's why, at DeleteMe, we are encouraging all Americans to take their privacy into their own hands and, when necessary, take proactive steps to keep their personal information safe."

The company says it will monitor data broker sites for private health data like vaccination status and remove it from these highly public databases, which sell the personal information of over 97% of U.S. adults..

About DeleteMe: https://joindeleteme.com/  

DeleteMe is the leading online privacy personal information removal service. In business for over ten years, DeleteMe's privacy advisors have successfully completed over 25 million opt-outs from data brokers, ensuring consumers' and businesses' online privacy.

Contact:
Will Simonds
(425) 243-6570
[email protected]

SOURCE DeleteMe

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