Former UK prime minister calls for coronavirus digital IDs to prove ‘disease status’

UNITED KINGDOM, June 11, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair has called for the creation of digital IDs to track “disease status” as part of the plans for restarting international travel after the global coronavirus crisis. 

Blair, who now leads the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said in a recorded message digital IDs were a “natural evolution of the way that we're going to use technology in any event to transact daily life, and this covid crisis gives an additional reason for doing that.” 

“I could be wrong about this, but when I can look at for example how you restart some businesses, how you restart international travel…I think people's disease status, for example have they been tested? What is the result of that test? Have they had the disease? Do they have the disease? I think unless you're able to record some of this data in a way that people can use it's going to be difficult to go back to anything like a near normal in things like transport,” Blair said. 

An article published in Forbes last month said that future air travel could involve “no cabin bags, no lounges, no automatic upgrades, face masks, surgical gloves, self-check-in, self-bag-drop-off, immunity passports, on-the-spot blood tests and sanitation disinfection tunnels.” 

“Digital technologies and automation will play a critical role in the future of air travel,” Forbes predicted. “The need to reduce ‘touchpoints’ at airports implies mandatory use of biometric boarding that allows passengers to board planes with only their face as a passport.” 

The Forbes article noted that a number of airlines including British Airways, Qantas, and EasyJet are already using the technology.

RTWT.