Exclusive: Maine Becomes First State to Require Schools to Report Student Vaccine Data Using Private Software

Maine schools aren't allowed to opt out of using Docket for Schools, a privately developed immunization-tracking software designed to enforce "adherence" to vaccine mandates.

by Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

Maine has become the first state to require schools to submit student immunization data to the state on Docket for Schools, a privately developed vaccine-tracking platform. Schools are not allowed to opt out.

Proponents of Docket for Schools say the platform streamlines record-keeping and reduces errors. But critics said the platform gathers children’s vaccine records without informed consent.

Critics also noted that Docket Health software has experienced data breaches.

Maine is one of four states that don’t allow religious exemptions to vaccination. California, Connecticut and New York also don’t allow them. In West Virginia, the state Supreme Court will decide the issues of vaccine mandates and exemptions later this year.

Health freedom advocates questioned Docket’s ties to the federal government and Big Tech. In 2017, Docket’s co-founders, Michael Perretta and Nathan Scott, received a $75,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Docket also partners with Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Oracle to integrate the SMART Health Card, a pandemic-era “vaccine passport,” into its mobile app.

In interviews in 2020 and 2023, Perretta said Docket developed its immunization-tracking software to enforce vaccine “adherence” — and to potentially share vaccination data with insurance companies in addition to states.

Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., author of “The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty: Unraveling the Global Agenda,” said Docket is “no mere convenience app — it is a privatized enforcement arm of the biosecurity state.”

“Seeded with HHS money, it’s now bolted onto school systems in the very states … that have outlawed religious exemptions to create airtight compliance grids,” Rectenwald said. “Its founder openly boasts about ‘vaccine adherence,’ push notifications for boosters, and sharing compliance data with insurers, exposing the scheme. This is techno-tyranny dressed in the usual ‘public health’ garb,” he said.

‘Parents didn’t give informed consent’ to provide vaccination data to Docket

Docket Health, founded in 2016, operates two platforms.

The Docket platform and mobile app provide access to personal and family immunization records by connecting to state and local immunization information systems.

Docket for Schools allows schools to submit vaccination records to state agencies.

The Docket app is available in 10 states and jurisdictions, including New Jersey, Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and Washington, D.C. Use of the Docket app is optional in these states.

Public health agencies in New Jersey and Wyoming suggest Docket can also be used to verify vaccination for other non-school purposes, including employment, sports participation and travel.

The Docket app’s features include viewing, managing and downloading records, push notifications for upcoming or overdue shots, and, in some states, digital verification of vaccinations through QR codes.

Maine has gone a step further. So far, it’s the only state that has implemented the Docket for Schools platform, which is mandatory for all Maine schools at all grade levels, beginning in the 2025-26 school year.

Docket for Schools, which is integrated with Maine’s immunization information system, allows state public health officials to view vaccination compliance by school or grade level, track vaccine exemptions and generate annual reports.

The system collects data entered by school staff and data that already exists in Maine’s immunization information system.

In October 2025, over 70 school nurses in Maine challenged the state’s implementation of Docket for Schools, saying it adds to their workload, shares student records with a third party without consent and could breach student privacy.

In their letter, the nurses said: “parents didn’t give informed consent to have detailed personal information … uploaded to a third-party platform.”

In a June 2025 memo, the Maine Department of Education told school officials that Docket for Schools meets “data privacy requirements” under state law and the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act.

The Department of Education also said that parental consent forms are not required for adding students’ data to the system, as consent forms “are only required for shared data, and student records cannot be accessed by users outside of their school.”

But critics concerned about privacy pointed to a 2021 data breach, caused by a security bug in a Docket-developed health app, that exposed users’ COVID-19 vaccination records.

According to TechCrunch, which discovered the breach, the bug publicly exposed users’ private information, including their names, dates of birth and their COVID-19 vaccination records.

The breach affected users in New Jersey and Utah. According to Docket, “only one” person successfully exploited the leaked data.

“The 2021 data breach was no glitch, but a preview of inevitable leaks and more importantly the weaponization of intimate health records — exemptions, religious beliefs, physician patterns — all funneled to third-party profiteers and state apparatchiks without meaningful consent or an opt-out,” Rectenwald said.

Maine selected Docket as a single-source vendor for the development of Docket for Schools. The $1.47 million contract was not subject to legislative debate or a bidding process.

The contract states that Docket is the only company meeting Maine Office of Information Technology guidelines and requirements.

Docket partners with the SMART Health Card, a COVID-era ‘vaccine passport’

Security concerns related to Docket’s immunization platforms closely relate to its integration of the SMART Health Card, a digital vaccine passport system first developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Docket offers SMART Health Card features in Alaska, Idaho, New Jersey, Utah and Wyoming.

Described as a “grassroots effort,” the SMART Health Card is an open-source computer code that can be used to “ping” a verified source of immunization data in order to produce a QR code. It collects and shares data, including a person’s name, birth date, and the dates and brands of the vaccine doses they received.

Developed in 2021, the SMART Health Card is a joint effort of SMART Health IT, Boston Children’s Hospital, and a coalition of private and public organizations known as the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the SMART Health Card was one of at least 17 initiatives developing a digital vaccine passport. It was implemented in at least 15 U.S. states and territories and in over a dozen countries and cities worldwide. Several hundred healthcare providers and pharmacy chains also implemented the platform.

Entities involved with VCI include Amazon Web Services, Apple, Microsoft, the Mayo Clinic, health departments in California and New York, and The Commons Project, a “global tech nonprofit” founded with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and that has ties to the Gates Foundation.

MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit, is another backer of the SMART Health Card. In 2020, Forbes described MITRE as a “cloak-and-dagger R&D shop” that “runs some of the U.S. government’s most hush-hush science and tech labs.”

TechCrunch reported that the 2021 Docket data breach originated from an error in how the Docket app requested QR codes for the SMART Health Card from servers.

The SMART Health Card was developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to power “vaccine passports.” But states now using Docket in conjunction with the SMART Health Card’s features said it is “not a vaccine passport.”

Melanie Dragone of the New Jersey Public Health Innovation Political Action Committee and of Innovative Parenting NJ, told The Defender that while “digital vaccine credential apps are often marketed as tools of convenience … they also build the infrastructure for verifying people’s health status through digital systems.

“Once health credentials are tied to QR codes or digital identity platforms, there is a real risk that access to travel, work or public services could become conditional on compliance with certain health policies. The concern isn’t just about cybersecurity — it’s about preserving personal autonomy and preventing digital systems from becoming gatekeepers of everyday life,” Dragone said.

Scott, who is currently Docket’s chief technical officer, was previously affiliated with Amazon and Amazon Web Services, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Perretta, now Docket’s CEO, has maintained volunteer roles with HHS’ U.S. Core Data for Interoperability Task Force and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He was previously affiliated with State Street, a major investment firm that holds significant shares in pharmaceutical companies.

Last year, Docket received the Association of Immunization Managers’ (AIM) Bull’s-Eye Award for developing the Docket for Schools platform. Big Pharma giants, including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, GSK, Merck, Moderna and Sanofi are listed among AIM’s “Corporate Alliance” funding partners — as is Docket.

‘We’re tracking the reminders to see if folks are getting their vaccinations’

While several states have sought to reassure the public that Docket — and the SMART Health Card — are not vaccine passports, statements Perretta made before and during the COVID-19 pandemic suggest otherwise.

In a 2020 interview, Perretta said, “From a public health perspective, we’re encouraging better immunization adherence.” He cited data suggesting that “access to a digital copy of your up-to-date immunization records will improve immunization adherence by 30%.”

Perretta also suggested that Docket could help insurers track vaccine compliance.

“One of the things that we’re looking into with some health insurance providers is that we would help their members be more compliant with their immunization schedule. Immunization adherence is definitely something that healthcare insurance carriers get graded on … that’s an area where we can make a big difference,” he said.

In a 2023 interview, Perretta suggested the Docket app could play an even more active role in encouraging vaccination, including sending vaccination reminders and evaluating metrics about the effectiveness of those “interventions.”

“Step one is, we’re getting people access to records. Step two, we’re enabling forecasting alerts. Step three is, we’re proactively sending reminders. Step four is that we’re tracking the reminders to see if folks are getting their vaccinations based on those reminders and tracking or measuring the effectiveness of that intervention.”

Perretta said the app could also play an active role in “guiding folks to nearby immunization services,” adding that Docket could collaborate with mobile clinics to identify areas where a “critical mass” of people is due for vaccinations.

The COVID-19 pandemic helped jump-start Docket’s business, and it’s important “to not lose the momentum from the pandemic,” Perretta said.

In a 2022 interview, Perretta said a 2019 measles outbreak in Utah also helped spur the development of Docket. “We started to think, ‘Oh wow, this could end up being sort of a measles app amid the outbreak,’” he said.

Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, said efforts to develop and scale apps like Docket are indicative of a sentiment among public health agencies that the paper vaccination cards that were commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic are insufficient to ensure vaccine compliance.

“A great mistake the elites made during the COVID fiasco was to rely on paper vaccination cards,” Tucker said. “New York tried and failed to go digital. That error will never happen again. The push is on for universal digital vaccination proof, governed by the app economy. This is digital tyranny unfolding in real time.”

Update: This article has been updated to clarify that Maine, California, Connecticut and New York are the states that don’t allow religious exemptions for vaccines.

Related articles in The Defender

• School Nurses Push Back on Maine’s New Vaccine Reporting System

• Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal by Maine Healthcare Workers Fired for Refusing COVID Vaccine

• Maine Hospital Fired Nurses for Refusing COVID Shots — Now It’s Begging Them to Come Back

• Maine Court Rules Against Family of Child Vaccinated Without Parents’ Consent at School

• Family of Boy Vaccinated Without Consent at School Asks Maine Supreme Court to Hear Case

• ‘Death Sentence for Millions’: WHO, EU Launch New Global Vaccine Passport Initiative