A digital COVID vaccination record is coming in Philly, but is there a need?

Philadelphia is pushing ahead with an effort to issue digital vaccine cards to residents, though businesses and health experts say they may be irrelevant at this stage in the pandemic.

The digital record encrypts the same vaccination information found on paper cards in a QR code format that can be scanned by businesses and others seeking to confirm vaccine status.

“There is a value, but its uptake would be very limited,” said Tinglong Dai, professor of operations management and business analytics at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. “People don’t really use vaccination records much unless you travel outside the United States.”

The city is moving ahead with the system despite ending its vaccine mandate for indoor dining in February. It has no plans to renew any COVID-19 safety restrictions. It declined to say when the digital cards will be available, citing technical issues with the rollout.

Proof of vaccination, though, is useful for more than just access to indoor dining, said Matt Rankin, a spokesperson for the health department. Some businesses do still require customers to prove vaccination, as do many employers and schools, Rankin said. The digital proof of vaccination would also be helpful as people get booster shots.

“It is also crucial to have access to your vaccine records when it is time for residents to get up to date on their vaccines,” he said.

» READ MORE: Why some Philadelphia restaurant owners are keeping their proof of vaccine rules

An online portal will allow Philadelphians to download the digital card, making it easier to replace tattered or lost versions of the paper proof of vaccination cards first issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At one restaurant still asking for vaccination cards, a co-owner questioned the usefulness of digital records.

“I’m hesitant to say whether or not it would be helpful,” said Ed Crochet, co-owner of Fiore Fine Foods, in Queen Village. “Most of the times we have difficulty, it was because people were offended that we were checking.”

Prior to the pandemic, the city planned to launch the online portal for Philly residents to access all their immunization records, Rankin said. The QR codes would only include information on COVID vaccines specifically.

In order to access a record, residents will have to get past a two-factor authentication process, where they’ll receive a code to log in via email or text message.

But not everyone will be able to obtain their records. An unknown number wouldn’t show up because the city doesn’t have an associated email address or phone number. The health department began asking vaccine providers to maintain up-to-date contact information in January.

Also left out are Philly residents who received shots outside the city and a handful of jurisdictions that share their data with the city — such as Connecticut, Delaware, Oklahoma, and Nevada.

For decades, health experts have sought a national vaccination database that would allow a physician anywhere to see a patient’s vaccination history. Privacy concerns, though, kept such a database from being created.

Political interest in a national record-keeping system sparked by the pandemic has recently waned. That’s in part because vaccinated people are still able to transmit the virus, making vaccination less critical as a tool to prevent COVID’s spread.

“As much as I like the idea of having a centralized vaccination system, if it’s limited to (one) city, it’s too little, too late,” said Dai, the Hopkins professor. “They could have used the money to do something better.”

The Biden administration has repeatedly resisted calls to create a national vaccine passport, resulting in a patchwork of digital vaccine verification systems across the country.

Some states have contracted with outside partners, like New York did with IBM. Philadelphia contributed about $70,000 to develop the system in a joint effort involving an immunization registry used by 17 jurisdictions as of July 2020. The city pays an additional $10,000 in annual maintenance fees.

Pennsylvania has no plans to offer residents a digital vaccine card, but depending on where residents got vaccinated, some pharmacies and hospital systems may provide digital health cards.

All told, more than half of Americans have access to some form of digital proof of vaccination.

Across the country, interest has varied widely. Last month, Delaware estimated that 10% of people have accessed their records electronically.

New Jersey offers an app called Docket to allow residents to access their records. A spokesperson said about one in five vaccine records have been accessed via the app.

For international travel, most countries accept both paper cards and digital vaccine cards. Singapore mandates the use of a digital card to enter.

In Philadelphia, businesses can still require proof of vaccination, and a few still do, including some restaurants, the Kimmel Center, and the movie theater in the Bourse. Crochet’s restaurant continues to check vaccine cards, he said, mostly at the request of his staff, who said it made them feel more comfortable. The policy has cost him business, Crochet said, particularly in customers from the suburbs.

“Anything that makes it less of an inconvenience would be helpful,” he said of the digital record, though he thought having proof of vaccination on a phone would be only marginally more convenient than a card in a wallet.

A spokesperson for the Kimmel Center said staff there wasn’t aware of the plan for digital cards.

» READ MORE: Should you carry your vaccination card with you? What if you lose it? Here are the dos and don’ts.

The city required the company managing its vaccination data to have its employees sign confidentiality agreements.

All digital vaccination verification systems encrypt health information using the globally accepted “SMART Health Card” framework. This sets standards to protect the security of the information.

The mostly commonly used scanning app is designed not to store vaccine information. Once the code is verified by a device, it does not retain personal health information, said JP Pollak, co-founder of The Commons Project, the nonprofit that provides the service.

But that’s only one scanning option, and there’s little federal legislation restricting what companies can do with your data if they design systems to store it.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group which opposes digital vaccine certification, emphasizes that the demand for vaccine verification is temporary — whereas the technology is not.

“These technologies have a way of sticking around later, and we will have built this infrastructure and culture that you get scanned at the doorway,” said Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney. “And then the door keepers potentially are keeping a record of who was there.”