Attendees at the World Economic Forum’s Davos summit last week encouraged governments to use digital identification systems for proof of vaccinations.
During a panel called “Comparing Notes on Financial Inclusion,” Queen Máxima of the Netherlands celebrated the progress being made on biometric digital IDs. As the United Nations secretary-general’s special advocate for inclusive finance for development, Queen Máxima is spearheading the push for the development of a global digital ID.
“In order to open up an account, you need to have an ID. I have to say that when I started this job, there were actually very little countries in Africa or Latin America that had one ubiquitous type of ID, and certainly that was digital and certainly that was biometric.
“We’ve really worked with all our partners to actually help grow this, and the interesting part of it is that yes, it is very necessary for financial services, but not only.”
According to Queen Máxima, digital IDs should be used to track several aspects of taxpayers’ lives, including vaccinations.
“It is also good for school enrollment; it is also good for health – who actually got a vaccination or not; it’s very good actually to get your subsidies from the government,” she told her fellow panelists.
COVID-19 vaccine passports were the precursors to a global digital ID, which has already been rolled out in several countries.
Last year, Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) Digital Government Minister Sarah Stoodley acknowledged that vaccine passports enabled her to carry out her present digital ID initiative.
Stoodley said that based on the use of the NLVaxPass for vaccination verification, Canadian authorities saw that taxpayers “now have more experience with the concept,” CBC News reported.
“’They verified their identity on the app, and then they used that going into restaurants and bars and shopping malls,’ Stoodley said. ‘So that’s something that we’ve seen now everyone is comfortable with.'”
Canada has been leading other countries in developing digital IDs as part of an initiative by the World Economic Forum (WEF) called the Agile Nations Charter.
The Agile Nations Charter was convened in November 2020 and brought together officials from Canada, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Executives from Facebook, IBM, Siemens, Sherlock Biosciences, Suade Labs, Volvo Group, and Wingcopter, also attended the meeting.
It did not include the United States, which at the time was led by President Trump and at odds with globalist institutions like the WEF and World Health Organization.
The stated purpose of the Agile Nations Charter was “a recognition by member countries of the need for international collaboration to create a regulatory environment in which innovation can thrive.”
According to a dossier on the initiative presented to Canadian Parliament in December 2022, the charter closely reflected the WEF’s agenda, which calls for “digital ID, digital payments, and data governance.” The establishment of a digital ID, or “digital credentials,” that taxpayers would need to use to access both governmental and private services was one of the primary tasks included in the charter.
It was agreed that the UK, Italy, and Singapore would participate in a digital ID workshop hosted by Canada. Together, the countries would develop a proposal for a digital wallet and ID, test their potential applications for services and transactions, and report back to the WEF and other countries.
“The goal is to explore and test the use case end-to-end, from the issuance of the digital credentials to a user’s digital wallet, to the use of those digital credentials to obtain services and/or complete transactions” and to “identify and document the gaps in interoperability and mutual support between participating Agile Nations members regarding digital credentials and digital trust services.”
However, the charter’s signatories agreed that “digital trust,” which the WEF defines as the belief that a particular technology and the company supplying it “will protect all stakeholders’ interests and uphold societal expectations and values,” is a significant obstacle that must be overcome before digital IDs can be implemented.
The Canadian government also acknowledged that different countries have different levels of technological access and digital trust, making it challenging to create a single, universal notion for digital ID across all nations. Canada, though, was optimistic that it could be implemented in every nation.
All participating nations implemented vaccination passports during the course of 2021.
Owing to the success of the Agile Nations Charter, the World Health Organization (WHO) teamed up last year with the European Commission to develop a digital ID that will be used as a global vaccine passport.
The WHO claimed that the passport system will enable “global mobility” and shield individuals from “on-going” health risks in addition to “future health threats.”
“In June 2023, WHO will take up the European Union (EU) system of digital COVID-19 certification to establish a global system that will help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats, including pandemics,” the WHO said in a statement.
“This partnership will work to technically develop the WHO system with a staged approach to cover additional use cases, which may include, for example, the digitisation of the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis. Expanding such digital solutions will be essential to deliver better health for citizens across the globe.”
As a “first step”, the WHO and European Commission will “ensure that the current EU digital certificates continue to function effectively.”
