MEP raises privacy concerns about café health check policy

Bars reopened in June last year. A month later infections started to rise. Photo: DutchNews.nl
Photo: DutchNews.nl

A Dutch MEP has asked the European Data Protection Board if it is legal for cafés and restaurants to ask their customers detailed questions about their personal health and record their answers.

Sophie in ‘t Veld points out that under coronavirus limitation rules in many EU countries, consumers are being asked for their health and contact details before they are allowed to make a booking.

‘A table in a restaurant, a pint in the pub, a ticket to the museum: only if you share your phone number, your health data and your contacts. Governments are already eagerly eyeing this trove of data,’ she pointed out on Twitter, with a copy of her official query. ‘We ask [the EDPB] if quasi-mandatory data collection is legal.’

In ‘t Veld, an MEP for the Dutch D66 liberal democratic party, believes that sharing personal data and further processing ‘is not proportionate and necessary, and therefore not in line with the GDPR’ data protection legislation.

She points out that hospitality venues will have to comply with this regulation in how they treat and store this data, and writes that the visitor should be able to decide whether or not anyone shares it – whether or not it is for contact tracing by health authorities to limit the spread of corona.

The development of a Dutch tracing app has been riddled with problems and privacy concerns, however initial testing on an application for telephones is currently underway.

According to Ron Roozendaal, head of the health ministry’s information policy, researchers are investigating whether people can be alerted if they have come into contact with someone who later is diagnosed with corona, but still remain anonymous.

DutchNews.nl has contacted In ‘t Veld for a comment.

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