German Government against COVID-19 vaccination register

The German Federal Government expressed itself against a registration of vaccinated persons in a central vaccination register in December 2021. The Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann from the liberal party (FDP) agrees with the statement from the government that a vaccination register is unenforcable under current German data protection law. But in contrast, the experts say that the register is a question of virological necessity, political will and legal design; data protection does not prevent an effective pandemic control.

In light of this, data protection experts say in an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) that the enforceability depends on the question “how” a legal register could be introduced but not on “if” it could be. They add: not only for the regulation of a vaccination register, but also for topics relating to COVID-19 apps, COVID-19 regulations in the workplace and even video conferencing softwares, the possibility of a data protection law compliant implementation is given. However, no further explanations regarding a permissible implementation are made.

Therefore, according to data protection experts, a general statement that the vaccination register is irreconcilable with data protection law is to be considered incorrect.

It remains to be seen if the German government changes its position after reflecting potential data protection compliant implementations.