The Defender of Rights issued an opinion on the bill aimed at transforming the health pass into a vaccination pass and sent out a number of warnings.
The Defender of Rights spoke out on the future vaccination pass, and raised two major concerns.
It is around January 15, 2022 that the health pass must be transformed into a vaccination pass. The Parliament debates this development and in particular its perimeter: it is a question of associating with it the possibility of verifying the identity (the government prefers to present this measure as a “documentary verification of concordance”) at the time of the presentation of the pass.
This identity check, or documentary agreement therefore, will be entrusted to the people in charge of places open to the public – for example, the ticket clerk or the ticket clerk at the entrance of a cinema. It was in turn to do this check in case of doubt, then this provision was withdrawn. Since then, the notion of “serious reason” has been added.
Risks of discrimination when checking the vaccination pass
But for the Defender of Rights, there is above all the fear that this documentary concordance is done “at the head of the client”. In other words, that this punctual verification does not become the theater of discrimination, conscious or not, made elsewhere by individuals who are not trained in this kind of operation. This is what she explains in a notice of January 4.
” Such checks may present the risk of being carried out in a discriminatory manner, since they are not systematic, but carried out at the discretion of the person in charge of the control. She warns. Systematic verification would erase this risk, but at the cost of congestion at the entrance to public places and of a societal organization around permanent control.
Another point that concerns the Defender of Rights: everything is left to the free will of people who are not trained in the fight against fraud. She does not say to herself ” not convinced By this orientation and is not sure of its effectiveness. It would be better to entrust this work to the security forces ” taking into account the objective pursued and the risks inherent in the exercise of such a prerogative “.
Significant friction could appear during an audit, or even clashes, warns the authority. Staff are not necessarily trained ” to manage situations of tension and conflict with clients and users ”, Especially since it is a question of applying these verifications including for situations of daily life.
What is an “official document”?
Last element criticized on the verification: the meaning of “official document” for documentary concordance. ” This rather vague term could give rise to different interpretations and applications, given the large number of people likely to carry out these verifications and who have no specific knowledge or training on what an official document is. », Notes the Defender of rights.
Clearly, it could be the national identity card that could be requested systematically, while other documents are possible. It would therefore be necessary to clarify which documents are acceptable, in order to leave no room for differences of opinion between the public and those in charge of controls, which could end up leading to dissatisfaction.
The government and the legislator have in short two possibilities: either the possibility of verifying the identity by such a large number of people is withdrawn, or a new wording is proposed for this provision, in order to remove blind spots and areas. shadow on the controls. But will the Defender of Rights be heard?
