Simplistic take. The most important roles of government include maintaining stability, continuity, defense, administering domestic policies, and crafting new po

Simplistic take. The most important roles of government include maintaining stability, continuity, defense, administering domestic policies, and crafting new policies. And data about people can enable metrics on the country and metrics about progress towards strategic goals, but in truth mostly exists to satisfy some internally imposed reporting requirement, or to prevent people double dipping in government programs and benefits. The author is not wrong in their tweets that "database management" is akin to the challenge that governments face, but more precisely it's fact management that's at stake. Every division of government ought to be able to assert facts they've been authorized to measure, maintain, and assert about people, and those facts ought to be visible to other divisions in some contexts, in line the with laws and ethics of the state. The problem is that instead of federated attributes, most government business is still at (or below) the level of mere "database management". The author admits that they used to lobby against ID cards. ID cards simply move identity proofing into a one-time ordeal, instead of one that must happen every time a person wants to interact with the government. ID cards do not violate privacy; the inappropriate consumption of data violates privacy. Vaccine passports and other similar instruments are tools of policies that are designed to limit freedom of movement. This is by design. The reduction of movement among individuals of unclear health status is a key goal of these policies, alongside developing an incentive mechanism to encourage the receipt of a vaccine, and simply to curate knowledge about people's health status to craft further policy. It's a civil liberties issue of course, but the government can deny you access to a military base too, and few governments send you food or provide shelter despite these needs being critical to existence, so it's another policy that tries to make difficult choices fairly while trying to avoid direct harm. Care should be taken to ensure equal access to vaccines to all people within the same priority group.