Opinion | Hong Kong’s vaccine pass is a vital, and secure, tool in war against Covid-19
- In striking a reasonable balance between public health and personal privacy, we have to recognise that the right to privacy is by no means absolute
- Even so, Hong Kong’s vaccine pass adopts privacy protection by design and has undergone security assessments and audits by independent third parties

Empirical studies have shown that vaccination is the cornerstone of success when it comes to recovering from the pandemic and reducing the rate of infection. In the past year or so, governments around the world have gradually rolled out health codes, vaccine passes or health passports, with or without contact tracing functions, as a step towards the resumption of cross-border travel and domestic activities.
A vaccine pass serves as an effective tool in creating a uniform way of presenting and verifying vaccination records, as well as helping public health officials in their contact-tracing efforts. But, given that it often contains data such as personal identifiers and a user’s vaccination or recovery records, any concern over privacy protection and data security is understandable.