Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Data protection, effort, control
That is what the vaccination registry debate is about
At the beginning of 2022, the Bundestag should decide on the possible introduction of a general corona vaccination requirement. It will also have to be clarified how this should be controlled. A national vaccination register, which has critics and supporters both in politics and among experts, could be of help.
How controversial a political question is can sometimes be seen from a single party. These days the debate about a possible vaccination register shows that. Regardless of the main topic of a general vaccination requirement, which alone would be contentious enough, it is this conceivable and perhaps necessary addition on which opinions in the SPD diverge.
Secretary General Kevin Kühnert? Is against introduction. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz? Is “very skeptical”. President of the Bundestag and health politician Bärbel Bas? Is for it. And Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach? Let it be checked and then want to decide for yourself.
Lauterbach made his indecision in an interview with the TV broadcaster of the “Bild” newspaper that it was still unclear whether such a register would become a “giant bureaucracy monster” or ultimately less trouble than some feared. However, too much effort is just one of the points cited by critics of a national vaccination registry.
What are the arguments in favor of it?
A vaccination register was discussed because it must be clarified how a general vaccination obligation – should the Bundestag decide to introduce it – should be checked at all. A central, traceable recording of vaccination data could be used for this. When asked about the data situation in the corona pandemic, President of the Bundestag Bas told “Welt am Sonntag” that the information was not yet sufficient. “We assume up to 90 percent of the nurses are vaccinated, but these are estimates. We need exact numbers, just for contact tracking.” The data situation is much better than at the beginning of the pandemic. “But it’s true, we need a national vaccination register, for example.”
Eugen Brysch, chairman of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, recently called for a central vaccination register, at least for medical and nursing professions. Germany is currently still making it too easy for counterfeiters. It had previously become known that after a corona outbreak with three deaths in a nursing home in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, a former employee of the facility was being investigated. The suspicion: The 44-year-old may have worked with a fake vaccination certificate in the home while she had Corona, according to a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office.
“A central vaccination register is the only way we can really get reliable figures about vaccination in Germany,” said SPD health expert Martina Stamm-Fibich. “The confusion about the registration of the vaccination quota in Germany must come to an end”. Recently, there had always been discrepancies between the vaccination quota officially stated by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the results of surveys among the population. In Germany, doctors and vaccination centers are currently reporting anonymized vaccinations to the RKI. “If we want to discuss a general compulsory corona vaccination, we have to be honest and say that we cannot introduce and implement this at all without a valid database,” said Stamm-Fibich. She referred to another advantage associated with an introduction: possibly easier recording of side effects.
The head of the North Rhine Pharmacists’ Association, Thomas Preis, referred to the “Rheinische Post” also on the unsatisfactory data situation and also emphasized: “With a central vaccination database, the population could be specifically invited to further booster vaccinations.” The German Ethics Council also recommends a secure national vaccination register.
What are the arguments against it?
One of the most prominent objectors is Federal Justice Minister and FDP politician Marco Buschmann – whose faction is already divided in the debate about a general vaccination requirement. Buschmann himself recently left it open whether he would speak out in favor of an obligation to immunize in the vote in parliament, but is skeptical of the introduction of a national database. “I am always reluctant to use national registers that store data on the entire population,” said Buschmann “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. “Privacy advocates fear that the state will gain extensive access to all health data of citizens.”
The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, Ulrich Kelber, described the introduction of a national vaccination register as feasible. “A national vaccination register is not impossible under data protection law,” he told the Funke media group. However, politicians “urgently need to first identify the goals they want to achieve in concrete terms, so that one can judge whether a central vaccination register is necessary for this or whether other measures are sufficient or even better suited”. Then “the necessary data collection and processing would have to be clarified, together with the necessary protective measures”.
SPD General Secretary Kühnert is also concerned about data protection. He told the editorial network in Germany: “Even if it is limited to the data from the corona vaccination, I see the fundamental risk that such a step will open the door for access to further data.” In addition, it is unclear to him how the “completely overloaded health authorities should also administer it”.
As for the argument of a more effective control of the possible compulsory vaccination, Buschmann said: “The state cannot and should not control everyone and everything at all times.” He spoke out in favor of random checks of evidence, as is now also the case with the 3G rule in rail traffic. The legal policy spokesman for the Greens in the Bundestag, Helge Limburg, made a similar statement to the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. Furthermore, the general right of personality of the Basic Law prohibits the introduction of such a register, since it collects massive amounts of data without justification. The Federal Constitutional Court could overturn a vaccination register, warns Limburg.
In terms of time and effort, the head of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Andreas Gassen, still has questions. The KBV considers “the timely creation of a central register in preparation for a possible corona vaccination obligation to be unrealistic”. The construction would “take months, maybe years,” said Gassen of the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”.
How should the question be decided?
A general vaccination requirement is to be discussed in the Bundestag at the beginning of next year. Votes should then only be based on conscience, not on the basis of group membership. There should be group applications for this, which can also include the introduction of a vaccination register. The traffic light coalition does not want to submit its own bill.