I worked at a job where I told people that they are fucked because they cannot find their proof of vaccination, COVID-19 or otherwise if they don't have their paper records with them. Proof of vaccination issues are a serious thing that needs to be brought up with vaccination mandates for work, school, etc. but it's hard to bring it up because then a bunch of shitty anti-vaxxer stuff comes up instead. There are ways to improve the system such as easier access to immunity tests, having schools submit records to the state immunization registry, and having the ability to access records at the DMV. They need to make access better for people who move out of state but need records, people who change phone numbers, people who are homeless, people in assisted care facilities, and people who change their name and/or gender.
I found my job very upsetting, I got calls from people who really need a certain job, and their employer wants them to have proof of vaccination, but they cannot because their childhood vaccination records cannot be released due to HIPAA laws, or maybe the only records of their vaccinations were destroyed in a fire or somewhere in an old storage after a doctor died a decade ago. If something happened to your COVID-19 vaccine card like someone took your wallet or the doctor who wrote it has ineligible hand writing, then you need to get the digital copy. In the digital vaccine record system they get matched to a mobile phone number, first name, last name, email address, and date of birth, but this information is too vague and this is a huge problem for homeless, senior citizens, undocumented immigrants, people who got COVID-19 vaccinations in the U.S but are visitors etc. The state I work for, California is trying to use this system for all immunization records too and it sucks like how are they supposed to match 30 year old mmr records from back in the day when people didn't have cell phones? They actually have matched those records for many people including me, I have been able to find my own mmr record using that new system that matched name, birthdate, mobile phone, and email, but this system of course doesn't work for a lot of people especially those who changed their name or don't live in California anymore, and it does not work for a lot of people in general as I see in my job.
If your record cannot be matched, the next step is to either contact wherever you got the vaccination-hope that your doctor is immortal and still working; they claim any doctor can edit your immunization registry records but that's bullshit. Your other option is to use this thing called the “Virtual Assistant Tool” which forces you to make an IDme account to prove your identity. IDme is extremely inconvenient and sucks for a lot of people and like to match you with your phone number and you need certain types of documentation to prove your identity and if you go to the IDme subreddit you'll see a lot of people pissed at the system. Even if you do manage to do this, there is no guarantee the California Immunization Registry can find your record or if its even there, and it takes about a week, sometimes even a month to get any word from them.
When this system started, there where a lot of people bringing up issues in the system, but these issues have improved but the designs in the system that lead to these issues still exist.
There are so many ways to fix this system, but nobody cares. Every time I bring up this issue nobody seems to care and one time I tried spreading the word on Facebook but got a bunch of antivaxxers advertising fake COVID-19 vaccine cards trying to take over my group. I got calls from people begging me and desperate but I cannot do anything, because nobody in the system wants to take any responsibility or action, it's always someone else's responsibility to have those records. Kids are loosing days at school, people are being denied or loosing jobs, even people are being denied access to nursing homes because of this and oh yeah being denied COVID boosters too.