During an event in San Francisco on Monday, Newsom explained that the "system" will essentially just be electronic vaccine cards that individuals can keep on their phones as opposed to carrying around the paper card.
On Tuesday, California fully reopened without capacity limits, with the state transitioning to an updated mask mandate. Masks are still required to be worn in schools and by those who have yet to receive the vaccine,in indoor settings such as inside restaurants.
The reopening allows businesses to require individuals to show paper vaccine cards to prove they don’t need to wear a mask. Businesses were told by the state that they will have three options related to vaccines and mask mandates. Business owners can provide information to customers and not require anything at all. They can implement “vaccine verification” to determine which people must wear a mask, or they can require everyone to wear a mask.
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Because some individuals have already started to produce counterfeit paper cards designed to show if someone has received one or both of the COVID-19 shots, the state began developing an electronic version of the paper version. Individuals will be able to show businesses their electronic vaccine verification information from their phones.
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Newsom insisted to reporters that the electronic system “is not a passport. It’s not a requirement. It’s just the ability now to have an electronic version of that paper version. You’ll hear more about that in the next couple days.
“As it relates to technology and the tools of technology, there are opportunities to make available, different strategies to provide a more secure, safe, and transparent form of verification. But again, this is voluntary. So I want to make this crystal clear before folks run with it – it’s become so politicized, almost everything in the state, nation – that there’s no mandates, no requirement, no passports in that respect.”
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Roughly half of U.S. states have banned any state agency or business, depending on the state, from requiring vaccine passports. All states that have done so are led by Republicans.
Some states have banned the use of vaccine passports, while most others neither ban nor require them.
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New York, for example, is offering an "Excelsior Pass" — an electronic proof of vaccination developed by IBM — that some businesses in the state are requiring for entry. The New York Times reported that the state plans to expand the program going forward, with the state possibly using the system to verify a resident's age, driver’s license status and other health records.
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