UK FREEDOM PASSPORTS TO BE ISSUED TO THE COVID NEGATIVE?

UK government is awarding contracts to firms to design an app that can be used to show a person is Covid-19 negative. This will allow the user to acquire a 'freedom passport' which will allow you to enter pubs, schools, and workplaces, and other public venues. The article says the government haven't quite decided to do this, but it looks like they're thinking in that direction.

The article raises the question of how the 'hapless', would be able to prove their 'negativity' if they haven't got a smartphone or some other whiz kid device. Presumably, they would have to go out and buy one or be refused admittance. Needles to say, this would be classed as essential shopping. 

Although I don't take a blasé attitude towards the Covid pandemic and take precautions, it does raise serious issues concerning civil liberties and possibly discrimination.

A university lecturer said to me only recently, that he thought Britain was beginning to resemble Vichy France. I said, I thought, a more appropriate comparison was with East Germany - more state control, the erosion of civil liberties, shop a neighbour, more spying, and the Stasi on your back. 

I just wonder what Mrs Gamp would have made of all this surveillance? After all, "I am not  a Rooshan  or a Prooshan" as she says: "and consequently cannot suffer spies to be set over me."

Half Baked Harriet

by Les May

FROM 1978 until 1982 Harriet Harman was the legal officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), which later took the name Liberty. From 2001 to 2005 she was Solicitor General for England and Wales, the second highest-ranking member of the Supreme Court after the Attorney-General.  So you might think that she would have some respect for the due process of law.
But judging by Harriet’s recent comment, ‘I think that the absolute key to this, when I think about my own experience and think about the Harvey Weinstein thing, is we need a system of whistle-blowing, anonymous whistle-blowing’, one might begin to doubt it.
Once you introduce the term ‘whistle-blowing’ you imply some kind of immunity.  Coupled with anonymity it’s a recipe for ruining the lives of innocent men with no possibility of redress.  The kindest thing you can say about it is that it’s a half baked idea and would not have been out of place in the armoury of the East German Stasi.
If you think someone is breaking the law tell the police.  That protects both you and the person being accused. If the accusation has substance the police will investigate and prosecute.  If the accusation is malicious the police will prosecute you.  That is how it should be.
You can see the rest of Harriet’s comments at:
http://www.careappointments.co.uk/care-news/england/item/42707-whistle-blowing-hotlines-could-help-women-report-abuse-harriet-harman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi