New York Quietly Shuts Down Covid Vaccine Passport Program

New York officials are shutting down the mobile app the state used to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination.

The $64 million Excelsior Pass app will be decommissioned on July 28 due to a major drop-off of user activity and its $200,000-a-month maintenance cost by IBM.

“Because demand for instant access to vaccine records has subsided and the public health emergency has ended, the Excelsior Pass app will be discontinued,” Hazel Crampton-Hays, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), said in a statement on Friday.

“Over the past several months, the state has explored whether the technology infrastructure could be harnessed for additional purposes, but ultimately we determined that funds and resources associated with the technology will be better directed toward other projects.” 

State officials claimed the stored personal data will remain “private and secure.”

“Going forward, the state will use knowledge gained from this project to improve how New Yorkers can use technology to access services and benefits,” Crampton-Hays added.

In other words, the experimental initiative will pave the way for an even more authoritarian social engineering program down the road.

When the app was launched in 2021, up to 11.5 million people were required to use the app to show up-to-date proof of COVID vaccination to access restaurants or entertainment venues, particularly in New York City.

From the Times Union of Albany:

The app, launched in March 2021 and eventually used by 11.5 million people, stored a person’s vaccination status against the coronavirus. It could quickly indicate whether someone was up to date with vaccine requirements for admittance to certain venues. 

During its launch — particularly in New York City — the app was used as a way to allow people to dine indoors, attend Broadway shows and watch sporting events. Cuomo and state officials hoped it could stimulate the state’s pandemic-wounded economy. 

“The Excelsior Pass will play a critical role in getting information to venues and sites in a secure and streamlined way, allowing us to fast-track the reopening of these businesses and getting us one step closer to reaching a new normal,” Cuomo said in March 2021, a year into the health crisis. 

State officials originally indicated it would cost IBM $2.5 million to build, but later acknowledged the total cost would run to $17 million — which turned out to be only about a third of the final price tag.

Remember, during the COVID Plandemic, politicians were intent on normalizing digital vaccine passports permanently in hopes of eventually implementing a social credit system akin to Communist China.

Though this represents a small victory against the COVID tyrants, it’s important to stay vigilant in the event state officials try forcing similar authoritarian tech onto the American people in the future to address the next “crisis.”

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