Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said yesterday, that he would take “executive action” and ban vaccine passports in his state. Republican DeSantis told a press conference, that the passports present “huge privacy implications.”
New York was the first state in the U.S. to announce it would implement a vaccine passport programme. It’s called “Excelsior Pass” and uses a QR code to admit a vaccinated person into different venues.
Governor DeSantis insisted that there’s no way it will be rolled out in Florida. He said;
“It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply participate in normal society.”
DeSantis said he believes people, “have certain freedoms and individual liberties” to decide whether to get the vaccine and he expressed concerns about privacy if such a program was launched.
“You’re going to do this and what, give all this information to some big corporation?” he said. “You want the fox to guard the hen house? I mean give me a break.”
Andy Slavitt, White House senior adviser on COVID-19, said yesterday; “The US government is not viewing its role as the place to create a passport, nor a place to hold the data of citizens.”
“We view this as something that the private sector is doing and will do,” he said.
