Test certificates for download
A Hamburg lawyer and his questionable corona certificates at the click of a mouse
The corona tests are one of the pillars of the pandemic.
© aprott / Getty Images
It is forbidden, but a service is flourishing on the Internet that offers evidence of negative corona tests for download. This is what a doctorate lawyer came up with.
Free corona test certificates at the click of a mouse – a service that shouldn’t be available at all. And yet there is a website that offers exactly that: test reports and recovery certificates to download. To get the documents, users only have to answer a few questions, such as confirming that they took a test at home and it turned out negative. That’s it An offer that opens the door and hinge to abuse. And although the service has since been banned by law, it is not yet online.
The whole thing came up with the doctorate attorney Can Ansay. It is not the first time that the hamburger has been fishing for the great success in the health sector. Because the man caused a stir years ago. At that time, inspired by a symptom checker on the Internet, he developed his “diagnosis calculator” and the Dr. Ansay AU-Schein GmbH was founded in 2018. It’s an interesting business model. For the price of 14 euros, he sells sick leave, i.e. certificates of incapacity for work, among other things. Users only have to click on the symptoms they supposedly have and can then select the duration that they have in mind for their sick leave. This is not checked by a doctor. Even then, the medical association sharply criticized the procedure.
Tens of thousands download the Corona certificates every day
In an interview with “ZEIT”, Ansay described himself as a man with “blatant solutions”. His latest blatant solution: the free Corona test certificates. “There has never been a more blatant improvement in history than with my process – not even through the two greatest German inventions, the printing press and the car.” He speaks of 50,000 people and more who use the service – every day. In Germany it is actually stipulated that an approved corona test must be carried out and monitored by the service provider. How can that be?
This time Ansay’s mother is on board. She is a retired gynecologist and plays a crucial role in the new service. With her signature, she confirms on the certificates according to the report that the patient has no symptoms, is not infected with Sars-CoV.2 and has “taken a negative antigen test under my specialist supervision of my doctor’s office”. But personal contact never took place, and that is exactly the concept of the service for the self-tests. Ansay refers to the “smart questionnaire” as a supervisory authority. In other words, the one that the users fill in independently. The responsible Hamburg social authority criticized the procedure, the certificates did not match the applicable regulations, wrote Wirtschaftswoche in November. People who use a wrong certificate would face fines of 300 euros. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, anyone who falsifies vaccination and test certificates can get a prison sentence of up to two years.
Prohibited, but not from the network
What is Ansay’s drive? He sells himself as an idealist, as a fighter for freedom. The corona policy is harshly condemned on his website, but unvaccinated people are defended. And then there is the matter of money. The certificates are openly offered free of charge, but the fact is that doctors who carry out tests and issue certificates can settle this. There are eight euros for each. Of course, officially billing is only possible for approved tests. Has Ansay found a loophole here too? With 50,000 corona test certificates per day, that would be a pleasant penny: 400,000 euros a day, 2.8 million euros a week, …. Responsible for this is the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians in Hamburg, which, according to “ZEIT”, did not want to comment on the case and cites data protection.
The judges of the Hamburg regional court have now put an end to Ansay’s activities with an injunction. At the beginning of December, they banned the service in an urgent decision. If he continues, it can cost him dearly. There is a fine of 250,000 euros in the room. But the side with the dubious certificates still exists – with a company based in Pakistan as the operator and a new doctor as the signatory. “I am no longer the operator of the site, so I cannot get any bans or fines,” said the lawyer, who did not want to answer whether he is involved in the other company. And: the man who is currently on the Côte d’Azur and enjoying life there does not seem to care much about possible punishments. “Do you think Carl Benz would have invented the car if he had followed the carriage law?”
Source: The time, daily News, WiWo