A non-profit group wanted to see how hard it would be to obtain fake credentials using New York’s new vaccine passport, known as Excelsior Pass.
They didn’t even have to break a sweat.
In 11 minutes, the group was able to obtain someone else’s credentials using nothing more than the person’s Twitter posts and other publicly available information.
The Excelsior Pass is the nation’s first vaccine passport that will supposedly open doors that will be closed to the non-vaccinated crowd. Concerts, ballgames, clubs — anyplace large numbers of people gather may require some proof you’re vaccinated.
The only information New Yorkers need to provide to register in the program is their name, date of birth, zip code and their vaccination card from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to the Post, however, all of that information can be found on a CDC vaccination card.
And with “vaccine card selfies” being a growing trend on social media, that gives ample opportunity for New Yorkers to obtain a fake Excelsior Pass.
You’re not going to be able to open a bank account or get a credit card with your fake vaccine passport. But when it’s ridiculously easy to fake, why bother requiring it?
New York says businesses participating in the Excelsior Pass program are supposed to check people’s photo IDs to combat fraud. But the Post noted that requiring businesses to check photo IDs could introduce new social barriers for individuals without identification, or make people unwilling to participate in the program altogether.
“To be clear, Excelsior Pass is a voluntary system that creates a digital copy of a preexisting paper record — it is not a standalone identification document,” Empire State Development spokeswoman Kristin Devoe told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The entire system was created with privacy and security in mind, however, those who post personal information online such as their CDC card, risk having someone use their information to create a false document, which is why every Excelsior Pass has to be cross-referenced with photo ID when you enter a venue.”
Recognizing the political time bomb of vaccine passports, Joe Biden has made it clear there will be no national vaccine passport. “The government is not now nor will we be supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential.”
No vaccine database? My county health department is well aware that I’ve had both Moderna shots. They signed my vaccine card. My name was on a list. Did they destroy that list or was it passed on to some other bureaucrat?
I don’t care that my name is on some obscure government list. I care if that list would be used to deny someone entry to a venue that requires it.
Within a matter of months, the issue of a vaccine passport will become moot. The U.S. will have achieved virtual herd immunity and the notion of requiring the proper papers to enter a concert hall will go back to being a dystopian nightmare found in 1950s communist countries and not 21st-century America.
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