The National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms voted Thursday in favor of a “regulatory text” to regulate the transmission of the vaccination status of students to school heads. It also points out the risks to privacy.
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The National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms (Cnil) said it wanted Thursday, October 21 “a regulatory text” to supervise the transmission of the vaccination status of pupils to school principals. Indeed, the National Assembly adopted on the night of Wednesday to Thursday a government amendment to the bill “health vigilance”. It concerns the knowledge of the vaccination status of pupils by school directors and secondary school principals.
Contacted by franceinfo, the CNIL recognizes that it “It is up to the government and the Parliament, in view of the health situation and the operational constraints of schools, to determine whether it is necessary to organize exceptions to medical confidentiality”. This type of provision, authorized by the Public Health Code, has also already been used in the law extending the state of health emergency, “there too to fight against the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic”.
Nevertheless, the CNIL has reservations about the framework of this draft amendment, which still has to be voted on by the Senate on October 28. Indeed, the draft amendment “explicitly mentions” the processing of these vaccine data by schools. Since then, “the conditions of operational implementation should be specified by a regulatory text submitted for the opinion of the CNIL, to regulate the purposes, the retention periods, the conditions of data security and the methods of information and ‘exercise of the rights of data subjects “.
The CNIL also warns in general about “the risk of habituation and trivialization of devices that violate privacy” but also that of a “shift towards a society where such controls would become the norm and not the exception”. For the committee, these measures cannot be justified “only if their application is limited whether it concerns their duration, the people or the places where they apply”. In addition, she asks that this device “[soit] accompanied by guarantees capable of effectively preventing abuses “.
Finally, as it indicated in several recent opinions, the CNIL considers that “The impact of the various digital devices on the overall health strategy must be studied and documented frequently and on the basis of objective data so that the devices are terminated as soon as their need is no longer proven”.