A Minnesota-based global IT firm that was handed £250,000 to provide cloud computing software for the Covid vaccine passport scheme and has already helped roll out national ID systems in Albania, Ghana and Malaysia and trying to sneak it into the UK. The Quandt family, step-grandchildren of Nazi Joseph Goebbels who inherited over 200 Nazi companies with tens of thousands of slave laborers, purchased 43% of the company Data Card Corporation in August of 1987. One month later, they purchased almost the entire remaining portion of the company to give them a 97% ownership of Data Card Corporation. In 2013, Data Card Corp bought Entrust Inc. for $500 million in cash. Entrust CEO Bill Conner says that “this is about the next generation for finance. Your phone becomes a virtual smartcard.” And enhanced tracking device.
Clients of Data Card & Entrust are listed as including the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Justice, The State of Illinois, the U.S. Coast Guard, NASA, U.S. & U.K. Postal Services, 3M, Lloyds TSB, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, RBC, several other banks & credit unions, and many more. And now they’re going to be in charge of tracking your “vaccination status” – and, more than likely, your location, how many people you’re with, etc. for “social distancing” purposes. Anything that is authoritarian, creepy, and Covid-related, they’ve got it covered.
Entrust was awarded a contract by the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in May 2021 to work on the Government’s Covid vaccine certification system. Entrust was handed £250,000 to provide cloud computing software for the Covid-status certification scheme run by NHSX — the Government’s digital health unit.
A blog post on the company’s website from February 2021, before the contract was signed, said vaccine passports could be used to “consider a national ID strategy” and “become part of the infrastructure of the new normal”. Jann Markey, Entrust’s product marketing director, wrote: “With the infrastructure and investment necessary to ensure a viable vaccine passport, why not redeploy this effort into a national citizen ID programme that can be used for multiple purposes including the secure delivery of government services, secure cross-border travel, and documentation of vaccination.” Entrust also hosted a webinar in January detailing how vaccine passports would enable governments “to collect valuable data” about citizens.
MPs and civil liberties groups have slammed the Government for signing a contract with the firm, claiming it marks the first step on the road to a national ID programme. David Davis, former Cabinet minister and member of the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) of Tory MPs, described the contract as “sinister” and demanded further explanation from the Government. He told i: “The health department is able to go around signing these contracts without explicit Parliamentary permission. But it is doubly extraordinary that they sign one with a company with this sinister attitude to surveillance of citizens.”
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith added that the contract “runs counter to the stated position of the Government and should be scrapped”.
Jake Hurfurt, head of research at civil liberties group Big Brother Watch told i that “Covid certificates would introduce ID cards in the UK by the backdoor”. “The fact that the government has done a deal with Entrust, a company which is openly plotting a route from vaccine passports to digital identity cards, only underlines what a serious threat Covid passes would be to our civil liberties and our privacy,” he said.
In April 2021, Entrust acquired WorldReach, a Canadian company that helps governments and travel service providers create seamless traveler experiences through the digital transformation of the ‘trusted’ identification process for immigration and border management programs. With the WorldReach acquisition, Entrust can help these organizations reshape government and travel service experiences around secure digital identities,” said Todd Wilkinson, CEO of Entrust.
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