Vaccine Passports Are Coming To Sports Venues

Vaccine passports (or passes or certificates) are being deployed at over 60 US stadiums and other venues this summer to get the economy “back to normal,” according to Reuters. 

Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants and New York Mets are some of the first teams demanding fans present proof of vaccination or a recent negative test via an app called Clear to verify their COVID-19 status. The teams will accept medical paperwork as proof, but they encourage all sports fans to download the Clear app for convenience.

Clear already streamlines the process of traveling through airports by securing all travel documents into an app. It allows travelers to expedite their way through security. Now Clear is being applied outside airports to over 60 US stadiums and other venues. 

“Clear powers fast, touchless experiences that keep you moving at airports, sports stadiums, and other venues nationwide. No crowds, no waiting, keep moving,” the company said on its website. 

Besides MLB stadiums, Clear also partnered with NBA teams “to help get fans back to the game by verifying health insights for a safer and touchless entry at select venues for the 2020 – 2021 season,” the company said.

A recent Rasmussen poll revealed that almost half of Americans support the introduction of health passports to reopen the economy. 

As the use of vaccine passports snowballs from airports to sporting venues, concerns about the app’s potential reach and implications are growing. 

Privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation fears Clear will hold sensitive medical data of users and transform it into consumer trackers. Clear said users control their health records.

As of April, Clear has about 142k downloads. 

Clear users upload a driver’s license and take a selfie, which the system matches them before connecting to COVID-19 test results from hundreds of labs. 

Some sporting venues also require additional symptom questionnaires that can be quickly filled out on Clear or an automated temperature check at a Clear kiosk. Once they pass, users get a “green” pass with their headshot and a QR code that venue staff scan at entrances. 

Health passports have already migrated from airports to sporting venues within a year – we wonder what is next?

Will passports be needed at shopping malls, gyms, schools, government buildings, supermarkets, and or any other mass gathering event or indoor area? 

Also, how does a vaccine passport help if the vaccine is impotent in protecting an individual from infection and its furtherance through transmission, particularly when there are increasing mutant forms of the virus? 

Already, several US states have shown a resolve against the premise of the vaccine passports. They include Texas, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi at the moment. We’re assuming more will follow. 

These health passports are nothing more than creeping totalitarianism and dictatorship by the government that wants to control and track everything we do.