“With iOS 15, you can securely store verifiable versions of your COVID-19 vaccination and test result records in the Health app on your iPhone or iPod touch.”
QUICK FACTS:
- Apple says its users will be able to “Add verifiable COVID-19 vaccination information as a vaccination card in Wallet and download and store verifiable vaccination and test result records in the Health app,” confirmed on Apple.com.
- “With iOS 15, you can securely store verifiable versions of your COVID-19 vaccination and test result records in the Health app on your iPhone or iPod touch,” the site reads.
- “Vaccination and test result records downloaded in this verifiable format are digitally signed by a vaccine or test result provider. This is similar to providing paper documents with an official seal.”
- After users add the vaccination card to their wallet, they can “view and present it at any time.”
- The front of the card shows the user’s name, even the vaccine type, dates of the doses administered, the issuer, and the QR code allotted by the COVID vaccination or test provider.
BACKGROUND:
- Former Republican Texas Congressman Ron Paul, an opponent of vaccine passports, has warned, “‘Vaccine passports’ must be stopped. Accepting them means accepting the false idea that government owns your life, body and freedom.”
- Dr. Paul’s attitude was shared by Dr. David Drew Pinsky, who supports vaccination, but also balks at any form of government sanctioned vaccine passport. He tweeted, “These vaccine passports segregate people and strip them of their freedom to travel internationally. Vaccinations are important, and I encourage everyone to get the Covid vaccine, but how would you feel if international travel also required other vaccinations?”
- Apple’s addition of a vaccination card to the iPhone comes despite iPhone being “vulnerable to two zero-day hacks that Apple has “known about for seven months,” according to Forbes.
- “If things don’t improve,” reads the Forbes piece, “serious problems lie ahead for millions of iPhone owners.”
FORBES REPORTS:
iPhones are currently facing their greatest security crisis in a decade, but what is becoming equally worrying is the response from Apple. And the latest development may convince you to quit your iPhone.
iPhones are still not safe. That’s the shocking revelation from security researcher Denis Tokarev, following the release of iOS 15.1. Tokarev revealed Apple has again left two “zero-day” iPhone hacks unfixed, despite making Apple aware of them more than seven months ago. Tokarev even made the hacks public last month in an attempt to force Apple to act and the company promised to do so. But it hasn’t.
“These two 0-day vulnerabilities are still unpatched in iOS 15.1,” explained Tokarev. “[they] allow spyware apps like @Facebook and @tiktok_us to track and profile you and to acquire sensitive data without your permission.”
iOS 15.1 is the third iOS update since Apple promised to act on the security flaws Tokarev discovered, and the ninth release of iOS in total since he first sent the vulnerabilities to the company.
