Letter to Governor Hochul on Vaccine Confidentiality

The NYCLU wrote to Governor Hochul alongside other civil rights, health care, immigrants’ rights, and privacy advocates, public defenders, and health care providers to urge her to immediately sign the vaccine confidentiality and immunity passports privacy legislation, S.6541-A (Rivera)/A.7326-A (Gottfried). This legislation will break down barriers to vaccination by ensuring that individuals’ personal information is kept safe throughout the vaccination process and that information shared to receive a vaccine cannot be used to criminalize or deport anyone or to take their children away. It will also support public accommodations that choose to keep their properties safer by checking vaccination status by putting in place reasonable guardrails for immunity passports to ensure that the most vulnerable can safely use an immunity passport to participate in society.

This measure will remove barriers to vaccination and ensure that immunity passports do not disproportionately cut off the most vulnerable – those who have suffered most during the pandemic – from society. The NYCLU urges the Governor to sign it into law immediately.