EU Commission head Ursula von der Leyen has had to walk back on claims that Apple and Google are working with the World Health Organization on vaccine passports. She made the claim after meeting fellow EU leaders, but Bloomberg News reported it has been denied by the WHO.
Apple and Google Not Working on Vaccine Passports With WHO
After her meeting on Thursday, Ms. Von der Leyen said that it was “important to have a European solution” to the growing discussion around vaccine passports. “Google and Apple are already offering solutions to the World Health Organization,” she claimed. However, a WHO spokesperson pretty swiftly said that “neither Google nor Apple” had been involved in such a process. (The two tech giants, of course, combined earlier on the pandemic to create exposure notification systems.) In response, on Friday, a source close to Ms. Von der Leyen said that she understood that experts from some tech firms are working with the WHO on a private basis, however, none of them are Apple employees.