The world as we know it will change forever in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Bill Gates who declared that we will soon have “digital certificates” to display our health and vaccination status.

Responding to a question during a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session, Bill Gates pointed to major changes for ordinary people that could have privacy and civil rights implications.

“Eventually we will have some digital certificates to show who has recovered or been tested recently or when we have a vaccine who has received it,” said Gates.

Gates also called for a “national tracking system”, saying that “in Seattle, the [University of Washington] is providing thousands of tests per day but no one is connected to a national tracking system” and that “Whenever there is a positive test it should be seen to understand where the disease is and whether we need to strengthen the social distancing.“

What is a ‘digital certificate’?

Gates clearly believes the public will accept being branded with digital certificates as easily as they accepted barcodes on consumer items.



According to IMB, a digital certificate is an electronic document that is used to identify an individual, a server, a company, or some other entity, and to associate that identity with a public key.

Like a driver’s license, a passport, a student ID, a library card, or other commonly used personal IDs, a certificate provides generally recognized proof of a person’s identity — or in this case, a person’s health and vaccination status.

All of which raises serious questions. What will happen to people who do not trust Bill Gates enough to accept a digital certificate? What will happen to those who refuse to be vaccinated?

While Gates has not elaborated on what his plan entails, or whether a digital certificate will be implanted in the human body, many people are concerned that the certificate could represent the “mark of the beast” warned about in the Bible.

Branding human cattle

According to Gates, people shouldn’t be concerned about “big brother” invading our privacy and tracking us and our children – this technology will only be used for safety and convenience, he says – and the technology is nothing more than an upgrade on traditional cattle branding.

The only catch is that you won’t know exactly what is being put into your digital certificate. You also won’t know who will have access to the data. If history repeats, it will go from being technology adopted for its ‘convenience and safety’ and then overnight will become mandatory for you and your family – or else.