As a lifelong privacy advocate, I feel it is necessary to highlight issues that may jeopardize the privacy of individuals and consumers. In 2007, when I created the original GPS embedded sneakers to keep Alzheimer’s patients and other vulnerable people safe, many encouraged me to overlook the need for a privacy component on the shoe in exchange for convenience and affordability. I ignored that advice and ensured that the users of the shoes had the option to apply the GPS function using a button only when necessary and when desired. To this day, I believe in and champion privacy of the user always, and am surprised and disappointed by the U.S. government’s decision to stay out of the vaccine passport debate. In doing so, they are putting everyone’s privacy at risk, in addition to our health and the future of the global economy.
Importantly, the government does not need to make vaccine passports mandatory in order to show support for their use in vaccination verification. Showing support for such measures is for the good of the people of the United States and around the world. Their stance in pushing the public to be vaccinated is incomplete if it does not include efforts that ensure those who have been vaccinated or tested can feel safe and be safe. Supporting vaccine passport usage does just that.
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