The vaccination portal “BayIMCO” initially drew attention to itself through breakdowns, which Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) described as “teething troubles”. Many citizens have now received an automatic e-mail from the state government’s vaccination portal – and this causes uncertainty or annoyance, especially in some older people, depending on their temperament. SZ reader Barbara Friese from Dillingen an der Donau is probably one of those who was very angry. “Impossible,” said the 76-year-old when asked on Thursday – that applies to both the content of the letter and the choice of words.
The mail begins like this: “Hello. The person Barbara Elisabeth Friese in your account has been deactivated due to inactivity.” Friese read on in astonishment: “This is because you have not booked a vaccination appointment and have not logged into your BayIMCO account for the last ten days.” The person will be deleted three weeks after receiving the email “unless you manually reactivate it in your account and arrange a vaccination appointment”. Friese wondered what to do with it. “Why should I have logged in in the meantime, since I’ve already been vaccinated twice – and again too early for the booster,” she says.
This letter will unsettle many, believes Friese. Apparently, she is not completely wrong, as the Office for Communication of the City of Nuremberg announced on the side effects of the BayIMCO-Mail. “That is why many are insecure and seek help from the city hotlines,” it says – combined with citizen-related information about the background of the action. In the latest update of the registration software, the “delete account” function was reactivated. Therefore, everyone who had not opened their profile in the last ten days received “an email that their account will be deleted”.
However, attention is drawn to the possibility of agreeing to “data storage for future vaccinations” – also for booster vaccinations. In fact, the way is described in the mail – child’s play for the savvy: According to this, if you visit your account via impfzentren.bayern/citizen, if you still have one, you will see a yellow note on the personal overview and thus ultimately to the blue box “Data for future vaccinations to save”.
A request to the Ministry of Health revealed: “The legislature stipulates that for data protection reasons certain data must be deleted after a certain period of time.” In addition: People who have already been deleted have the option of logging into the system at any time. “The Person” Barbara Friese definitely broke with BayIMCO. She strictly asks: “Why does it say ‘the person’? Did the email also go to animals?” Ultimately, however, she no longer needs the vaccination portal. She has the third vaccination against Corona done by her family doctor.