Legal hurdles: What a vaccination registry might look like

In addition to compulsory vaccination, a central vaccination register is also being discussed. In this way, compulsory vaccination could be better enforced. But is it that easy?

What should a national vaccination register bring?

So far, vaccination centers, vaccination teams, hospitals, medical practices and company doctors have transmitted the vaccinations carried out to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). Messages can be lost in the process. However, the RKI is dependent on this information on the vaccination status of the population. A vaccination register could provide more reliable data. In addition, unvaccinated people could be more easily contacted and persuaded to be vaccinated. And research could provide important data on possible side effects of vaccinations.

Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has so far been skeptical about a central vaccination register. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach also advocates compulsory vaccination without a vaccination register that has yet to be created. The structure takes too long and is also not undisputed in terms of data protection law.

According to the General Data Protection Regulation, which applies throughout Europe, health data can be recorded in exceptional cases if this is in the public interest and serves to protect against serious cross-border health risks.

The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, Ulrich Kelber, can basically imagine a central vaccination register in terms of data protection law. However: “The particular challenge is to determine the purposes and goals and to demonstrate that such a vaccination register is necessary and proportionate.” To justify this solely with the enforcement of the vaccination obligation seems questionable to him.

The situation would look different if other goals were added. For example, if knowledge about the pandemic could be gained through the register or if it would be easier to contact unvaccinated people.

How should the conditions be regulated?

According to the General Data Protection Regulation, a regulation is required that guarantees that the rights and freedoms of those affected are protected. “There it would have to be regulated which office keeps the register, its independence, for which precisely described purposes the register is kept, which personal data is stored for how long and who has access to this data,” says Rolf Schwartmann, head of the Cologne research center for media law of the TH Köln and chairman of the society for data protection and data security.

Are there other hurdles?

For data protection officer Kelber, the particular challenge is “that the data for such a vaccination register is currently not available and would first have to be obtained”.

Further questions: who should collect the data and how should they get there? So how should the reporting obligation be designed? Rolf Schwartmann suggests: “The obligation to report could be fulfilled, for example, by those who have to be vaccinated.” His idea: Expand the RKI’s CovPass app or the Corona warning app with the help of a law. As a digital solution, so to speak.

And what options are there for people who don’t use apps? “For this purpose, pharmacies can transmit vaccination certificates in paper form to the register-keeping office. A comparison of this data with that of the population registers would have to be regulated in the Federal Registration Act.”

Are there already vaccination registers in other countries?

Yes. “In the Netherlands the population register can already be linked to the central vaccination register and used for research purposes,” explains political scientist and vaccination register expert Katharina T. Paul from the University of Vienna. “In Denmark By linking vaccination register data with electronic patient files, assumptions about side effects from HPV vaccination (editor’s note: vaccination against cancer, especially of the uterus) were checked.”

And in Austria A central vaccination register should soon help to enforce compulsory vaccination. It is not yet clear whether there will be a complete comparison between the registration and vaccination registers. A general obligation to vaccinate against the corona virus will apply in the country from February.