@hill-matthew similar here. I would only feel safe to attend in person if there was a strict “vaccinated or recovered” policy. Such a policy is also easy to enforce by verifying at registration. Otherwise, I’ll just attend online. That’s not as much fun, though!
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Such a policy is also easy to enforce by verifying at registration
It is not easy.
How would you go about verifying documents from multiple different countries, potentially in multiple different languages? Do all countries provide ‘recovered’ certification? Are people medically exempt from vaccination allowed in? How do you verify medical exemption? Is it legal discrimination to make exempt people jump through extra hoops? If we are collecting the vaccination status of UK individuals this counts as medically sensitive data. What is the law on storage and access of that data? Do other countries have different laws for holding the medical data of their citizens and how do we comply with them?
Please don’t interpret that as an official response from ADC - I just want to make it clear that these kinds of considerations are much more nuanced than the last couple of posts have made out. The organisers of other London-based tech conferences happening just before ADC have made similar decisions: droidcon London has the same policy as ADC, and Black Hat Europe only requires a negative lateral flow test.
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Thanks for your response, it helps me make up my mind, but just some closing thoughts.
What is the logic behind not even requiring a lateral flow test? Fast, cheap, better than nothing. I simply cannot understand why every indoor mass gathering would not be looking to protect their attendees by asking for that.
By using the NHS’ Covid Pass Verifier you’re not collecting sensitive data, it gives you a go/no-go and you’re done. Nothing is stored and you can’t infer much from whether or not somebody was given entry. You don’t even get to find out why it was a go/no-go so it’s not transferring any data on vaccination status as it could simply mean a recent test was positive. If you only end up checking the UK attendees that’s a massive reduction of the risk surface.
Maybe, but it could also be legally negligent to have decided not to use all of the tools you had reasonable and free access to, such as the tools the UK gov have provided us with to check UK residents. You’d only ever find out one way or the other in court.
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