Technology expert Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., told The Defender that, under the guise of preserving freedom, a digital passport system “means restraints on movement and living for the unvaccinated and forced vaccination to participate in life.”

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. via the Defender

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission — the executive branch of the European Union (EU) — on Monday launched a “landmark digital health partnership” marking the beginning of the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN) to promote a global interoperable digital vaccine passport.

Beginning this month, the WHO will adopt the EU’s system of digital COVID-19 certification “to establish a global system that will help facilitate global mobilityand protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats, including pandemics,” according to Monday’s announcements by the WHO and the European Commission.

The WHO and European Commission claim the GDHCN initiative, which has been in the works since 2021, “will develop a wide range of digital products to deliver better health for all.”

The organizations said the WHO will not collect individuals’ personal data via these digital passports — stating that such data collection “would continue to be the exclusive domain of governments.”

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lauded the new agreement:

“Building on the EU’s highly successful digital certification network, WHO aims to offer all WHO Member States access to an open-source digital health tool, which is based on the principles of equity, innovation, transparency and data protection and privacy.

“New digital health products in development aim to help people everywhere receive quality health services quickly and more effectively.”

However, experts who spoke with The Defender said the ramifications of such a system for human liberty and freedom of movement raised concerns.

Independent journalist James Roguski told The Defender the WHO is not waiting for a successful conclusion of these negotiations in order to implement initiatives such as a global digital vaccine passport. He said:

“The announcement by the WHO and the European Commission regarding the launch of their digital health partnership was hardly a surprise. Over a month ago, the WHO quietly published that they were working on ‘operationalizing’ the very things that were being ‘negotiated.’

“This is just one example that clearly shows that the super-secret ‘negotiations’ regarding the International Health Regulations (IHR) are a charade.”

Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom,” told The Defender that, under the guise of preserving freedom, a digital passport system “means restraints on movement and living for the unvaccinated and forced vaccination to participate in life.”

The announcement of the WHO-European Commission collaboration came just days after the conclusion of the WHO’s annual World Health Assembly (WHA).

While the pandemic treaty and IHR amendments were not finalized at this year’s meeting, high-level WHO officials warned of the risk of a future pandemic and spread of a deadly “Disease X,” and expressed the need to “restrict personal liberties” during a future health emergency……..

‘Pandemic passports a death sentence for millions’

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The WHO also announced the successful completion of a “technical feasibility study for establishing a federated global trust network, which tested the ability to interoperate the health content and trust networks across existing regional efforts.”

EU officials have frequently praised themselves over the launch of the bloc’s “Green Pass,” touting how individuals’ privacy would be protected on the app. The introduction of the “Green Pass” was accompanied by statements by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling for a “discussion” on mandatory vaccinations in the EU.

One of the EU’s stated priorities as part of its 2019-2024 five-year plan is to create a “Digital Identity for all Europeans.” Namely, each EU citizen and resident would have access to a “personal digital wallet,” which would include national ID cards, birth and medical certificates, and drivers’ licenses.

These proposals and initiatives appear to be closely aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and in particular, Target 16.9, which calls for the provision of a digital legal identity for all, including newborns, by 2030.

Tedros said the SDGs are “our north star,” while addressing this year’s WHA.

Rectenwald called “pandemic passports” a “death sentence for millions.” He told The Defender:

“Despite the studies demonstrating that vaccines to curb pandemics have been deadly and useless, the WHO is doubling down on vaccine mandates.

“Pandemic passports equal a death sentence for millions and the abrogation of rights for the non-compliant. The WHO should be stopped before it completes the construction of a global totalitarian system.”

WHO Adopts European-Style COVID-19 Vax Passports-New Global Digital Health Certificate

source: the epoch times

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it will take up the European Union’s digital COVID-19 vaccine passport framework as part of a new global network of digital health certificates.

The WHO said in a June 5 statement that it had entered into a “landmark digital health partnership” with the European Commission (EC), the European Union’s executive body.

As part of this new joint venture, Europe’s existing framework of digital vaccine passports will serve as the first building block of a global network of digital health products.

Dubbed the Global Digital Health Certification Network, the new vaccine passport framework has already drawn criticism, with Australian senator Alex Antic saying in a statement that the move is “just another conspiracy theory coming true.”

Vaccine passports—and various other forms of digital identity schemes—have been criticized as an invasion of privacy and as having the potential to enable governments and corporations to coerce human behavior by, for instance, denying access to infrastructure or services.

The WHO said in a statement that, as part of the new initiative, it 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.”

The EU’s digital COVID-19 vaccine certificate entered into force in July 2021, with over 2.3 billion certificates issued.

As the pandemic has waned, the use of vaccine passports has seen limited use of late—and it has declined further since the WHO recently declared an end to COVID-19 as a global public health emergency.

While the EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation is set to expire at the end of June 2023, the WHO sees potential in the bloc’s digital vaccine passport framework for additional use cases beyond COVID-19, such as by digitizing the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis.

Critics have denounced vaccine passports as discriminatory for facilitating denial of access to public services to the unvaccinated or paving the way for more intrusive health-based surveillance.

‘Worrying Development’?

The new global vaccine passport initiative follows a December 2022 agreement signed by WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus and European Commission for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides, meant to bolster EU–WHO collaboration on a wide range of digital health products.

“Today is a new chapter in global cooperation on digital health,” Kyriakides said in a statement on social media.

“It will help to place WHO at the centre of our global health architecture,” she added.

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Roos also expressed concern that the new initiative was being driven forward by the WHO, which is not a governmental organization accountable to voters.

“We cannot handover national power to a private funded institute without any democratic legitimacy,” he said in an earlier post that took a dim view of the so-called global pandemic treaty, a separate but related proposal that is being negotiated within the WHO’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body.

While the global pandemic treaty is in its early stages and is still far from ratification, concerns have been raised that the “legally binding” treaty would give the WHO too much sway over sovereign countries’ health policies.

The push for a global system of standardized digital health certificates has been around for some time.

G-20 Push for Global Vaccine Passports

In November 2022, the leaders of the Group of 20 (G-20) nations issued a joint declaration promoting a global standard on proof of vaccination for international travel and calling for the establishment of “global digital health networks” that build on existing COVID-19 vaccine passport schemes……..

‘Digital Gulag’?

Journalist Nick Corbishley, who writes about economic and political trends in Europe and Latin America, has warned that vaccine passports can lead to the implementation of a global digital identity scheme that will threaten privacy and freedom across the world.

“It’s like this checkpoint society. Wherever you want to go, you have to show your mobile phone, your identity … even if it’s just to go into a supermarket or go into a shop,” he said on EpochTV’s “Crossroads.”

Corbishley described the negative aspects of a global digital identification scheme as a kind of “digital gulag” in which people could be “effectively banished from society.”

“That is a terrifying vision,” he said.