The documents were checked even before the green pass, without any controversy

The documents were checked even before the green pass

Document control, the cornerstone of the strategy linked to the Covid-19 green certification, has nothing new: it has been happening for some time in many areas, from alcohol to credit cards

(photo: ANDREAS SOLARO / AFP via Getty Images) Let's see if we remember them all. Check-in and identification in hotels and similar facilities, including campsites. Often for credit card payments. Again, for all rental procedures: for a car we are asked for practically everything, from driving license to paper to documents. Then there is the purchase of a sim card for the phone, it should be there to buy alcohol or items for smokers, to collect a package or correspondence in stock at the post office or even in other private postal service depots with much lower guarantees, like the centers that couriers rely on: newsstands and small shops. Again: entering the stadium, in a recreational club for which a card is required, boarding a plane, entering the premises of a company as a guest of some employee, as a pledge for an audio guide at the museum, recharging a PostePay card. In the gym, together with the medical certificate for non-competitive practice or to enroll children in school. And who knows how many other situations escape us.

These are those in which, without even thinking about it, we show an identity document, typically an identity card. We show it, in these contexts, to operators of all kinds and training: air stewards and hostesses, for events or sports facilities, shop assistants, postmen, newsagents, renters, hoteliers, guides, tobacconists. Only to restaurateurs, apparently, the quick check of the document to understand if the green pass is really from Mr. Mario Rossi, and not from his friend Paolo Bianchi, seems a gesture bordering on science fiction. Indeed, for some experts, the outpost of the "militarization of society". Who knows how else car rentals or wine shops could verify the age of those who present themselves in front of them: perhaps with some divinatory art, or by pulling at random?

The control of the documents is actually the lintel of the whole strategy linked to the Covid-19 green certification: the spiel for which the bartender will have to be a sheriff is good for the news feeders and for the synthetic and impulsive reasoning that he would like to unleash in us. In reality it is the exact opposite, and yesterday's circular from the Interior Ministry, which puts half a patch on the embarrassing messes of recent days, only partially explains it. In fact, it is a very severe weakening of the green pass a few days after its entry into force. First, because control already rests with the figures in charge of the reopening decree of last June 17 (someone forgot this at the ministry last week); second because so many other colleagues check documents in dozens of different situations; third because it is a contradiction: it would be in the interest of the restaurateur not to turn his pizzeria into a hotbed. Fourth: in the presence of any credential, this must be coupled with identity verification. Credentials are not banknotes, they are individual conditions not bearer bonds. Thus, the green pass is downgraded to a bearer title.

Do you want proof of the grotesque we are falling into? Matteo Flora, founder of The Fool, a leading Italian company for online reputation and for the protection of reputation and digital assets, provided it on Twitter. With a long and desperate thread: using a photo published by the Tuscany region in a promotional tweet, one of the classic "generic" ones found on photo agencies, he scanned the QR Code depicted in the photo with the Verification C19 app and discovered that it was perfectly valid, readable by the app and therefore in fact usable by anyone to access wherever it is required. It was the code of the unfortunate photographer who took the shot for sale. The issue has been repeated many times, mainly with stock photos used by brands or organizations for green pass communications. Far beyond the limits of the pantomime that demonstrates how the green pass, without contextual verification of documents, is not only useless but dangerous.

+++ DO YOU WANT A FREE #GREENPASS? FOLLOW ME +++

As an advocate of the #GreenpassObbligatorio I have to note how the disagreements between state organs have led everything to be little more than a farce.

Without document control anyone can expose anything #GreenPass… (1/6)

- Matteo GP Flora (@lastknight) August 11, 2021



In short, we get it. The idea that a green pass and not one's own green pass is enough for access in all situations in which it is needed is already the first and fatal blow to the credibility of a measure to which we have substantially entrusted the health, social and economic fortunes of the autumn, and beyond. After all, merchants already check documents in a large number of situations, or should in any case do so. It is not clear why it does not take an extra 10 minutes in the whole of a working day to seriously implement a useful measure. The idea that you can find yourself next to, indoors, a person who has used a QR Code (i.e. an image sent on WhatsApp, a photo of a photo, a file or a printout procured in who knows what other way) of in fact, a friend undermines the rationale of this system to the foundations and, in the end, even its function as a push towards vaccinations. Having made the law, found the deception? Yes, it's a pity that this time the deception was found by those who made the law.


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