Divisive. Discriminatory. Wrong. We need YOU to join the fight against COVID passes.
We are crowdfunding to grow the greatest possible fight against domestic COVID passes - and now we're bringing the first human rights legal challenge in the UK against Covid passes.
Your donations will build the biggest possible campaign to fight domestic COVID passes.
With every penny donated, we're building a powerful national campaign, lobbying parliaments, making the case all over the media, and taking legal action to stop COVID passes in the UK.
After months of telling the parliament and public there were "no plans" for COVID passes, we now know this was a lie.
COVID passes are now mandatory in Wales and Scotland, and could be soon in Northern Ireland. We've written to Ministers in each administration, and we are now taking legal action against the Welsh government's invasive and unevidenced COVID pass scheme.
The Government is "strongly encouraging" businesses in England to restrict access using COVID passes, leading anyone from bouncers to bosses to conduct health ID checks.
If the NHS comes under "unsustainable pressure" - which is highly likely - the Government will remove test and antibody status from the COVID pass to make it a vaccine ID, with vaccinated-only entry to conferences, nightclubs, sports and music events, festivals and more.
However, whilst vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious illness from coronavirus, they do not stop transmission. If vaccines can't stop transmission, nor can vaccine IDs.
Vaccine certificates would be the first attempt at segregation in Britain for many decades, dividing communities without reducing risks. We are in real danger of becoming a checkpoint society.
We cannot, and will not, let this Government create a two-tier country of division, discrimination and injustice.
Our common goal is to emerge from this pandemic healthy, safe and free. But we can't arrive at freedom through exclusion.
The effect of the scheme is to create a society where the poorest, the most marginalised, and anyone who does not comply with medical interventions could be denied basic socio-economic opportunities and afforded fewer liberties than their neighbours, colleagues and fellow citizens.
The prospect of internal health passports signals a grave unbalancing of the relationship between not only citizens and the state but citizens and employers, business owners, managers, marshals, and anyone else dressed with authority.
The Government’s push for vaccine IDs puts the UK in the midst of one of the greatest civil liberties battles we have faced in modern times. This is a time to stand up and take action.
With your support, we've now held off COVID pass plans in England - twice!
On 5th July, the UK Government announced that COVID passes would not be mandatory for the 19th July unlocking. This was the first huge achievement of our campaign!
But on unlocking day, the Government did yet another U-turn, threatening vaccine-only passes from September.
However, after a tough campaign, on 12th September the Government announced there will be no vaccine passports in England for September - but they remain in reserve for winter.
Meanwhile, Ministers in Scotland and Wales have made COVID passes mandatory for nightclubs and large events, and Northern Ireland is set to push ahead with an even more expansive COVID ID scheme very soon.
We have written to Ministers of all four nations; we've written to every single MP, MS and MSP, we sent them evidence, we published a report, Access Denied: the case against a two-tier Britain under COVID certification, we sent a copy to every parliamentarian, and we gave oral and written evidence to parliamentary committees.
We made headlines on BBC and all major broadcasters when we brought together 80+ MPs to sign a pledge opposing COVID passes, threatening a Government defeat. They're all listed on our campaign site, stopvaccinepassports.co.uk
We took the message straight to parliament, projecting STOP COVID PASSES onto the Palace of Westminster; and we played ministers' lies that there were "no plans" for "discriminatory" COVID passes on a digital billboard across Westminster - even sending Health Secretary Sajid Javid running!
We took the message to Labour and Conservative party conferences too, live-streaming alternative Civil Liberties Conferences for the parties' rights advocates.
Whilst the UK Government decides whether or not to mandate vaccine passports in England, and they loom on the horizon in Northern Ireland, we're keeping the pressure up in parliament and the press - and we need your help.
We're identifying and boycotting every business that has chosen to operate with COVID passes and sending them a letter setting out the reasons they must stop. You can read more about that here. Please email us if you find a business requiring COVID IDs for entry!
We've now started the first human rights legal challenge against COVID passes in the UK, demanding that the Welsh government drops this intrusive, unscientific, rights-abusive scheme. We'll take further legal action wherever necessary, whenever we can.
All of this is costly, intensive work. We can only do it thanks to your continued support here - so please do keep giving and keep sharing this campaign far and wide. Thank you!
Big Brother Watch is a civil liberties and privacy campaigning organisation, fighting for a free future. We’re determined to reclaim our privacy and defend freedoms at this time of enormous technological change.
We’re a fiercely independent, non-partisan and non-profit group who work to roll back the surveillance state and protect rights in parliament, the media or the courts if we have to. We publish unique investigations and pursue powerful public campaigns. We work relentlessly to inform, amplify and empower the public voice so we can collectively reclaim our privacy, defend our civil liberties and protect freedoms for the future.
