The World Health Organization announced Monday it is expanding on the European Union’s digital COVID-19 vaccine passports, using the system as "the first building block" towards creating a WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network.
"Building on the EU's highly successful digital certification network, WHO aims to offer all WHO member states access to an open-source digital health tool, which is based on the principles of equity, innovation, transparency and data protection and privacy," said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. "New digital health products in development aim to help people everywhere receive quality health services quickly and more effectively."
According to the WHO statement, the world body will take up the EU system this month, reportedly to “facilitate global mobility” and protect people “from on-going and future health threats, including pandemics.”
The WHO praised the EU’s work using vaccine passports to “facilitate free movement” and said through the collaboration it will set up its own global structure aiming to “allow the world to benefit from convergence of digital certificates.”
“This partnership is an important step for the digital action plan of the EU Global Health Strategy,” said Stella Kyriakides, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety. “By using European best practices we contribute to digital health standards and interoperability globally—to the benefit of those most in need. It is also a powerful example of how alignment between the EU and the WHO can deliver better health for all, in the EU and across the world. As the directing and coordinating authority on international health work, there is no better partner than the WHO to advance the work we started at the EU and further develop global digital health solutions.”
The WHO believes the system will cover uses beyond COVID-19, such as for the digitization of the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis.
From New York City to Australia, people around the world saw how vaccine passport systems severely curtailed the unvaccinated person's freedom, denying them access to public services and more.
The move is being widely denounced on social media.
The “first building block” of the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network.
— Senator Alex Antic (@SenatorAntic) June 5, 2023
Just another conspiracy theory coming true. https://t.co/CK2hLZ5zxi
🚨 Rollout of centralised digital IDs in the name of health and equity, will pave and perhaps hardwire our proverbial road to serfdom.
— PANDA (@PanData19) June 5, 2023
We have seen enough of the disastrous pandemic policies of the past 3 years to know that individual freedom and self-determination is not part… https://t.co/Tox8pUL3Ot
Translation: WHO & EU Commission are planning a Brave New World in which bio-surveillance will make it almost impossible to travel without submitting to WHO- and EU-approved vaccines. The biggest winners will be the pharmaceutical industry. The biggest losers will be the citizens… https://t.co/DDhkE9qUkA
— David Thunder (@davidjthunder) June 5, 2023
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