Bet you are all set to go with your smart phone and Ontario premier Doug Ford’s vaccine passport. You do realize, I hope, that this passport with its QR code can contain much more than just your COVID-19 vaccine status? With capacity for 4000 characters, it is not as simple as a tweet on Twitter. The ministry of health includes recent lab tests and other information in its QR code. It is hard to get in touch with anybody in the know about this question at Queen’s Park. No doubt, you would agree to sharing some of the details with your doctor. You might want to draw the line though with the guy on the door at your local gym.
Would you really want to share your recent test results for gonorrhea? Or your prescription to help you get erections? Maybe you scoff at this, but a rushed QR code app might just be making a mockery of your supposed right to privacy.
Maybe they are lazy? Because they were in a hurry? Because they did not want to excise your recent lab results, doctor to doctor information or your refills at your pharmacy?
Nobody is arguing that the ministry of health vaccine certificates we used for the past month are easy to fake but this QR code might be a major trade-off.
And maybe all that extraneous info has been deleted. Mind you, I worry more about the people without smart phones. And it is not just seniors. Some people simply do not want or cannot afford a smart phone. I have never seen a deal for a smart phone that did not start at less than $50 per month. And that is before all the charges for extra usage.
I, for one, am quite happy with my $10 per month cell phone (a cheap flip phone). It serves nicely as an emergency phone in the car and to check with the wife when buying her something at the grocery store. The home phones are the same $10 per month deal.
And I really wish that restaurants would go back to the colorful printed menus, that made them think twice about the printing costs, before raising prices.
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Copyright 2021 © Peter Lowry
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