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Content type: Examples
Immunity passports are likely to increase discrimination and threaten fairness and public health - and won't work for practical reasons. First and foremost, scientists do not yet know whether infection confers immunity or for how long; the serological tests so far developed are insufficiently reliable; the volume of testing required is not feasible; and no country has enough survivors of COVID-19 to boost its economy. There are also numerous ethical objections.
Writer: Natalie Kofler and…
Content type: Examples
In Colombia, Peru, and Panama, quarantine regulations assign men and women different days to go out. For transgender people, these gender-based restrictions mean discrimination and violence for law enforcement and others, leading to numerous complaints. In Bogota, where law enforcement has been instructed not to demand ID to prove gender and trans people are allowed to choose their day, one trans woman was stabbed by a man who said she was out on the wrong day, and another was blocked from…
Content type: Examples
In one of its pandemic-related emergency orders, the Canadian province of Ontario has extended to police officers, First Nations constables, special constables, and municipal by-law enforcement officers the power to require those facing charges under the emergency laws to give their name, date of birth, and address or face fines of up to C$750 for non-compliance.
Source: https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/those-violating-ontario-s-emergency-orders-must-id-themselves-or-face-steep-fine-1.4877062…
Content type: Examples
NHS England is using Yoti's digital ID card solution to verify health care workers' identity; the cards are added to staff phones, enbaling them to use a contactless ID app to prove their identity both online and offline. Yoti is providing the system for free for three months to all public health organisations, emergency services, and community initiatives working to contain the pandemic.
Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202004/uk-national-health-service-rolls-out-yotis-biometric-…
Content type: Examples
In Haiti, the National Identification Office has been extremely crowded, despite the government requirement to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people. The cards, which include a photo, name, date of birth, and registry number, are required for bank transactions and other official purposes.
Source: https://www.voanews.com/science-health/coronavirus-outbreak/haitians-seeking-national-id-cards-say-government-violating-its
Writer: Sandra Lemaire and Matiado Vilme
Publication: VOA News
Content type: Examples
Ghana's opposition party, the National Democratic Congress, has blamed a spike in cases of COVID-19 on the National Identification Authority's refusal to suspend its registration efforts in the country's Eastern Region even though two citizens filed for a court injunction to halt the operation and even though the conditions violated the country's social distancing directives. Registrants were forced to share fingerprint scanners and wait in overcrowded conditions. Public pressure later forced…
Content type: Examples
An Accra High Court has ruled that the National Identification Authority can continue registering Ghanaians after two citizens filed a case arguing that continued registration violates the social distancing directive issued by president Akufo-Addo. However, a different division of the High Court granted a similar injunction filed by a group of 30 citizens, in force for ten days beginning on March 23.
Source: https://www.modernghana.com/news/992060/continue-with-your-ghana-card-registration-…
Content type: Examples
To help the UK's Department for Work and Pensions handle the more than half a million applications the department received in the last two weeks of March, the identity verification company Nomidio, a subsidiary of Post-Quantum, is offering its service free of charge. The service would enable a simple, server-based three-step verification process through a smartphone to help first-time users prove their identity.
Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202003/free-palm-and-face-biometrics-…
Content type: Examples
British biometric start-ups are helping the UK government create digital passports.
VST Enterprises is providing a biometrics-backed digital health care passport, V-COVID, to help critical NHS and emergency services workers get back to work; the passport will incorporate test results and be included in an app that can be scanned from two meters away. In combination, Patchwork Health, which provides NHS trusts with a digital platform and Truu, which provides a digital staff passport, will make…
Content type: Examples
Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte has exempted survey teams and National ID system registrars from lockdown rules on the basis that they are essential to providing cash distributions and other government responses intended to soften the impact of the community quarantine. Duterte argued that the acknowledged delays to the government's programme to assist low-income families derived from discrepancies in the lists of beneficiaries caused by relying on the 2015 census and that the implementation…
Content type: Examples
The Jamaican Government intends to fast-track creating and implementing a national ID system and give every Jamaican citizen a unique identifier in order to help it distribute aid and benefits needed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The government intends the system to be similar to others such as India's Aadhaar and incorporate biometric scans of either fingerprint or retina. It believes the system could also help formalise some professions such as taxi drivers and bartenders that are…
Content type: Examples
Biometrics companies are offering free services to essential businesses, remote workforces, and government agencies administering benefits claims during the coronavirus pandemic. Among them are Redrock Biometrics, which is waiving its licence fee for palm print recognition for essential businesses; Daon, which is offering free access to its multi-factor biometrics-based authentication platform, "IdentityX", to all new customers; PrivyID is offering a month of free digital signature service to…
Content type: Examples
Prime Minister Andrew Holness told the House of representatives that efforts to combat Covid-19 would be “greatly assisted” by a mandatory biometric national ID system. The national identification system, NIDS, would require everyone to register and be linked to an individual’s unique biometric. The system has been highly controversial, and was subject to a challenge last year brought by oppossiton leader Julian Robinson in Jamaica’s Supreme Court, which ruled it violated the right to privacy…
Content type: Examples
As part of its efforts to facilitate a transition out of lockdown, researchers at Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, are planning to introduce "immunity certificates" for those who pass an antibody test to show they have had and recovered from the virus and are ready to re-enter the workforce. The intention is to test 100,000 people at a time and use the information so gathered to plan the transition.
Sources:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/29/germany-will-issue-…