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- As coronavirus vaccines roll out, immunity passport apps are becoming more prevalent.
- But new research that analyzed 65 existing apps found that 82% had privacy problems.
- Immunity passport apps also risk entrenching existing inequalities, and may not yield significant health benefits, the research suggested.
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As vaccines offer new hope for people round the world, so-called "immunity passport" apps are starting to look more and more like a reality - but new research suggests they could be dangerous.
According to a new report from security research company Top10VPN, immunity passport apps - which tout themselves as enabling users to travel internationally, or go into their office or school - are riddled with privacy flaws and pose big ethical problems.
The report surveyed 65 digital health certificate apps currently in operation around the world, and found 82% had inadequate privacy policies.
"The vast majority [of apps] are not particularly privacy preserving. Like most of the tech that we've monitored that's been rolled out during the pandemic it's been rushed and doesn't really have the protections that you would expect considering how sensitive some of this information is," the report's author Samuel Woodhams told Insider.
"At the bare minimum you would expect adequate privacy policies that specify what sort of information is going to be acquired from an individual," he said.
"Loads of them have these really generic, boilerplate privacy policies that don't specify what information is being collected and don't tell you how long it's going to be stored for, and then they're sharing it with third parties as well," Woodhams said.
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As well as having inadequate privacy policies, many of the apps ask for intrusive amounts of data, including location data, Woodhams said.
He pointed to the fact that in Singapore, citizens were told data they shared with the country's contact-tracing app would not be shared with police - a promise the government broke earlier this month.
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"More than half of all the apps we looked at explicitly said they share user data if asked by relevant authority," he said, adding this was the case for US-based apps.
Most of the apps Woodhams reviewed were made by private companies, which he said rings alarm bells. "There will always be a financial incentive to share or use this data in other ways," he said.
Some of the apps he reviewed had worryingly broad language in their privacy policies about sharing data with third parties.
"[Some apps were] essentially very open-ended, and say 'we reserve the right to share this information with third parties for relevant business purposes' - which could mean anything and I think there is a real risk data will be used to sell to advertisers," he said.
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Privacy worries aside, Woodhams said widespread use of immunity passport apps could deepen social inequalities already thrown into sharp relief by the pandemic.
"As vaccines are rolled out, these apps are going to become more and more prevalent. And we know that the vaccine rollout is going to be broadly along certain economic divides around the world.
"What that then has the potential to mean is that you'll end up in a state where people in wealthier countries have access to vaccines, so they'll have access to these apps and then they can travel, go to work or whatever while the rest of the world can't," he said.
US state data reviewed by Insider earlier this month showed that white people received more vaccinations than Black people and other minorities, despite the fact the pandemic has disproportionately impacted people of color.
The report also highlighted that immunity passports may not be a particularly effective way of stopping the spread of COVID-19, given there is no definitive proof yet that vaccines stop people from transmitting the virus.
"I think that the negatives massively outweigh the positives," Woodhams said, when asked about the potential health advantages of immunity passport apps. Vaccine-based apps could even make people's behavior more dangerous, he added.
"If it's a vaccination-based immunity passport we don't know whether people that have been vaccinated can still contract the virus and spread it without becoming sick. So [...] you've got the green tick on your app, you're going around infecting other people that haven't had the vaccine yet," he said.
"I can so see why it appeals, because the idea of being able to get a vaccine and then you get a green tick on your phone which means you can go back out into the world is a very attractive one. But unfortunately we know that's not the way it's going to work, and it requires huge numbers of people to be vaccinated," Woodhams said.