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METERFor months, the Federal Ministry of Health only responded evasively to questions about a digital corona vaccination card, but now things suddenly have to go very fast: on Wednesday, Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU), wrote to several German companies through an emergency award procedure. . According to WELT information from corporate circles, he wants an answer on Monday.
On Friday, Deutsche Telekom confirmed on request that it wanted to participate in the tender and would respond in time. Other companies will follow. But a Wednesday through Monday deadline for a public tender for such a relevant and multi-million dollar project is unusual at least, and indicates that the ministry has had conversations with the companies involved on the matter for weeks.
In the first wave of the summer, an EU-level working group was founded, says Andreas Grode, strategy advisor at health informatics specialist Gematik, whose majority shareholder is the Ministry of Health. “In this working group, it was found in the fall that it is now very relevant to think about vaccination certificates,” Grode said Friday in a conversation with the Bitkom association, which can be found on YouTube. The actual development began six weeks before Christmas.
The EU wants to introduce the corona vaccination pass before the summer
In three months, Europe should obtain a uniform vaccination certificate. The EU summit agreed on this. The Chancellor agreed, but pointed out some obstacles. Whether the passport is linked to the freedom to travel is also controversial in the EU.
Source: WORLD / Alina Quast
By then at the latest, the Ministry of Health knew that the development of a tamper-proof vaccination certificate would be necessary. So why has Spahns Haus been so hesitant to officially commission the development, why has the minister answered questions for months only with references to the electronic patient record planned for 2022?
One reason could be the constitutional consequences that result directly from the immunity test. “As early as May last year, the Federal Ministry of Health asked the Ethics Council to deal with the immunity test,” says Steffen Augsberg, an expert in constitutional law at Justus Liebig University in Giessen and a member of the German Ethics Council. , in an interview with WELT. “From the summer at the latest, it could be assumed that a forgery-proof vaccination certificate would be necessary. In this context, the reluctance of the federal government to do so is relatively incomprehensible to me, especially when you look at the constitutional side. ”
That is exactly what it is about: “If, on the one hand, risk groups are vaccinated and, on the other, vaccination significantly reduces infectivity, limiting the freedom of freedom of vaccinated people can hardly be justified. “Enough done.” It makes sense that the vaccination cards are just part of a larger effort that includes additional testing in particular. However, it is not stated that everyone should stay in the restrictions as long as possible. ”
“People will no longer tolerate this”
In addition, the unvaccinated would not be harmed by the fact that the vaccinated could go back to the pub, says the ethics expert. “On the contrary: as a society, we benefit from it.” Therefore, he hopes that vaccinated people will take legal action against the restrictions. “People will no longer tolerate it, and they should have a good chance with complaints like this.”
Mario Brandenburg, a technology policy spokesman for the FDP, also notes that the vaccination sequence was deliberately designed so that vulnerable people first receive a corona vaccine. “As soon as these particularly sensitive groups have received the vaccine, there will no longer be any reason to restrict freedom rights for these groups of people, especially if there is a forgery-proof vaccination certificate decided by the federal government.”
By the end of December, Spahn had already spoken out against the special rights of vaccinated people, at least until everyone had a chance to get vaccinated. In an interrogation in the Bundestag on Wednesday, Spahn said only that the question of what emerges from the vaccination certificate requires “its own debate”, which “without a doubt” must take place in the German Bundestag.
Perhaps also to avoid this debate, currently Spahn is trying to downplay the digital vaccination certificate: the digital vaccination certificate is, according to Spahn, only a “temporary” solution because as of January 1, 2022 in the electronic file of the patient (ePA) comes a digital vaccination certificate for all vaccines.
But Spahn is wrong. The ePA does not even meet the EU requirements for a digital vaccination certificate. It must be tamper-proof, clearly assignable to a person, and universally readable. But that is exactly what the EPR is not. Mark Langguth, one of the ePA developers at Gematik, also writes on Twitter. The ePA does not come with a large vaccination card, but with “an electronic copy of the paper identification”, a “digital identification, unfortunately not legally relevant (not regulated)”.
In this context, it seems remarkable that there has been no communication for months and that it is now rapidly unfolding in an undercover process. This could also have legal consequences when it comes to acquisitions, warns Jan Ziekow of the German Speyer University of Management Sciences. “The non-compete procedure has the lowest degree of transparency; it can only be chosen for specific reasons.” For example, because a company has licenses for the necessary technology or because only a few companies consider themselves capable of doing so.
The tight deadline between the invitation to tender and the submission of bids could also fall at Spahn’s feet. “Given that only five days, including the weekend, it is at least sporty.” A lawsuit against the adjudication procedure could at least initially be successful and would further delay proof of vaccination.
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