For Immediate Release
S.T.O.P. Condemns NY State Vaccine Passport: ‘Excelsior Pass’
Group warns that vaccine passports will undermine vaccination efforts and expand inequity in the vaccine roll-out.
[NEW YORK, NY, 3/3/2021] - Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based privacy group, condemned the launch of Excelsior Pass, New York State’s vaccine passport app. Excelsior Pass was first tested yesterday during a Brooklyn Nets game at the Barclays Center and a New York Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. Excelsior Pass requires attendees to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to enter the facility, is the first major attempt at a vaccine passport in the United States.
SEE: Release - Governor Cuomo Announces Pilot Program Testing the Excelsior Pass at Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center
https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-announces-pilot-program-testing-excelsior-pass-madison-square-garden-and
NBC – New York Pilots COVID Passport of Sorts to Fast-Track Reopening: Here's How It Works
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/ny-pilots-covid-passport-of-sorts-to-fast-track-reopening-heres-how-it-works/2919254/
WIRED – Vaccine Passports Can Help the US Reopen—or Further Divide Us
https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-vaccine-passports-can-help-the-us-reopen-or-further-divide-us
“Vaccine passports are unproven, discriminatory, and they will put New Yorkers at risk,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. “We keep being promised technological shortcuts to end this pandemic, and every time they fail. At a time when New York’s vaccination effort has systemically underserved BIPOC and immigrant New Yorkers, vaccine passports threaten to turn medical inequity into digitized segregation. Using a tracking app to coerce people to get vaccinated will backfire. Rather than creating new compulsory tracking tools, we should be investing in evidence-based efforts to build trust in the vaccine.”
Developers have proposed requiring vaccine passports to access a variety of public spaces, ranging from work, to school, and even grocery stores. Currently, the Biden administration is reviewing the potential for national expansion of such a program, but officials have made no public statement about its viability.
SEE: Washington Post - The Technology 202: Tech giants are teaming up to build digital vaccine records
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/15/technology-202-tech-giants-are-teaming-up-build-digital-vaccine-records/
N.Y. Times – Coming Soon: The ‘Vaccine Passport’
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/travel/coronavirus-vaccine-passports.html
Cahn continues, “this technology will fail the same way that exposure notification apps failed to curb the spread of the pandemic, only now people will be in crowded arenas where they are at risk. Public health officials aren’t calling for this, but big businesses are. We shouldn’t prioritize ticket revenue over public health. When tech giants tell us that their technology allows us to flout public health guidance, we should demand more than the sales pitch.”
The Excelsior Pass roll out comes amid growing evidence that past efforts at virus screening technology failed to stop the spread of COVID-19.
N.Y. Times – Colleges that require virus screening tech struggle to say whether it works.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/world/colleges-that-require-virus-screening-tech-struggle-to-say-whether-it-works.html
The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider hosted by the Urban Justice Center. S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Our work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color.
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CONTACT: S.T.O.P. Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn;
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