Excelsior Pass is another vestige of New York’s COVID-19 era to come to an end

New Yorkers will soon have to bid adieu to one of the last remaining vestiges of the state’s COVID-19 pandemic response regulations – the Excelsior Pass Plus app.

Once used as a digital record of a person’s COVID-19 vaccination history, the app was launched in March of 2021, while the pandemic was starting to lighten up in New York City. At this time, public high schools were reopening for in-person learning and vaccine eligibility was expanded from the previous 65 age cutoff to include people ages 50 and up.

Now, the app is being discontinued as of July 28 due to a lack of demand, just two months after the federal government announced an end to the public emergency status for the pandemic. 

“Because demand for instant access to vaccine records has subsided and the public health emergency has ended, the Excelsior Pass app will be discontinued,” a spokesperson for the governor’s office said in a statement. “Over the past several months, the State has explored whether the technology infrastructure could be harnessed for additional purposes, but ultimately we determined that funds and resources associated with the technology will be better directed toward other projects.”

Government technology expert Albert Fox Cahn, founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, told City & State that, amid its glitches and high price, Excelsior Pass never did deliver on the promise of being a vaccination passport. 

The app was so weakly secured that he was able to hack into a (consenting) user’s account within 11 minutes and see all of her information. His organization is part of lawsuits seeking to gain more transparency from the state surrounding the app’s management. Additionally, he said that competing apps stunted Excelsior Pass’ growth.

“This is an ill-fated boondoggle that never served the people of New York well, and while I’m glad to see the state acknowledge that this app never was able to deliver what was promised,” he said.

The app was initially projected to cost $2.5 million and be built by IBM, but that price tag kept growing. In May, The Times Union reported that the cost of the app reached $64 million, which included payments to IBM and to two consulting firms, Boston Consulting Group and Deloitte. Despite the large sum spent on the app, it has only existed for around two years and was made obsolete in New York City by changes to pandemic regulations within a year of its launch.

Excelsior Pass Plus and the New York State Wallet app were originally created to give restaurants an easier way to check vaccination status for patrons who wanted to be seated indoors. At the time of the apps’ launch, indoor dining was only available to vaccinated people. The wallet app held the access pass that the Excelsior app provided, plus a few other passes like the Empire Pass that allows entry to the state parks.

Instead of pulling out a crinkled vaccine card, the app allowed customers to pull up a QR code on their phones that restaurant staff could scan as a proof of their vaccination status. 

“New Yorkers have proven they can follow public health guidance to beat back COVID, and the innovative Excelsior Pass is another tool in our new toolbox to fight the virus while allowing more sectors of the economy to reopen safely and keeping personal information secure,” former Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at the time of the app’s launch.

New Yorkers are no longer asked to provide proof of vaccination to enter businesses, rendering the Excelsior Pass obsolete.

Once the app is discontinued, people will no longer be able to download it or log in. If the app is already on a phone, it will still be able to be opened, but tech support will not be available if the app has any issues.

Excelsior Pass had its fair share of issues. 

In the early months after the launch of the app, some New Yorkers struggled to get their digital pass, even when they had waited the required 14 days from their full vaccination. 

Others had their passes expire before they were supposed to or struggled to renew their passes. Sometimes deleting and redownloading the app or deleting and recreating the app fixed the issue, but in some cases people had to contact the entity that administered their shot or the state Health Department for help. 

Reports of these issues slowed as the months went on, before the app was made unnecessary by changes to indoor dining regulations.