Americans Have Real Concerns for Vaccine Passport Privacy
Over one third (35%) of Americans would prefer a chip to a vaccine passport
As Americans get vaccinated, a majority have stressed serious concerns about the security and privacy regarding having vaccination credentials, especially related to vaccine passports. A 2021 Vaccine Passport Privacy Study of 1,000 American adults from NordVPN which found that two thirds of Americans (66%) would get a vaccine passport if it were required to travel, and even though the US may not require vaccine passports, 62% would still get one if its required to visit other countries.
However, 40% are concerned it won’t be universal and another 38% are concerned they could be stolen or hacked. Most interesting may be that 35% of Americans said they would be willing to get a chip versus a vaccine passport, despite that 75% said they would be worried about the possibility of a chip being hacked or misused. The study also revealed that in order to be assured their vaccine passport was fully secure, Americans would give up gambling (37%) and other vices such as:
- 36% – Social Media
- 36% – Alcohol
- 34% – Video games
- 33% – Marijuana
- 21% – Sex
- 20% – Snacks
- 19% – Movies and TV shows
- 17% – The Internet
Additionally, the study found that more than 4 in 10 would have a positive attitude for companies that require vaccine passports for their workers to return, while 25% would have a negative sentiment for that company.
“The coronavirus pandemic has created the ideal environment for bad actors to prey on people’s fears and vulnerabilities during this period of uncertainty,” stated Daniel Markuson, digital privacy expert at NordVPN. “With vaccine data in their hands Vaccine fraudsters will take hold of every channel available, including vaccine passports, vaccination cards, human chips and vaccine health records to try to capitalize on it. So people need to take every security step they can to protect their health information, including using a VPN for all health communications.”
More on Requirements
If required to go to work, 61% said they would get a vaccine passport. With a mix of some returning to work and some working from home, 55% have concerns regarding online security due to the multiple connections.
If required to travel, half of Americans (50%) think a good reason to make people get a vaccine passport is so that all people can travel safely. And more than half (57%) think that those with vaccine passports shouldn’t have to travel with those who do not have a vaccine passport. As well, despite many countries already enforcing vaccine passports for travel, Americans are divided nearly 50/50 over whether there is a need for vaccine passports.
About Propeller Insights
Propeller Insights is a full-service market research firm based in Los Angeles, using quantitative and qualitative methodologies to measure and analyze marketplace and consumer opinions. Propeller conducted its national online survey for NordVPN of 1,007 U.S. adults between April 21-23, 2021. Survey responses were nationally representative of the U.S. population for age, gender, region and ethnicity. The maximum margin of sampling error was +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
About NordVPN
NordVPN is the world’s most advanced VPN service provider, used by over 14 million internet users worldwide. NordVPN provides double VPN encryption, malware blocking, and Onion Over VPN. The product is very user-friendly, offers one of the best prices on the market, has over 5,000 servers in 60 countries worldwide. One of the key features of NordVPN is the zero-log policy. For more information: nordvpn.com.