Coronavirus: the Senate validates the "tracing" of patients, subject to guarantees

Limits to the exemption from medical confidentiality, supervisory body and individual right of opposition in certain cases: the Senate approved conditions Tuesday evening the creation of an "information system" to identify people infected with coronavirus and their contacts. The senators, a right-wing majority, adopted by 278 votes to 29, with 34 abstentions, the sensitive article 6 of the bill extending the state of health emergency thus amended, at first reading.

"If we have no tracking , we have no deconfinement" from May 11, assured the Minister of Health Olivier Véran. The "brigades" or "guardian angels" , including agents health insurance, will be responsible for making up the list of cases contacts of infected individuals. The system that will centralize information is "the central device of deconfinement" because we must be able to "identify contaminated people" so that they isolate themselves, but not "at any cost" for freedom or data protection personal, according to the rapporteur LR Philippe Bas.

Read also: Coronavirus: the executive opens the way to "tracking"

The senators have validated the "guarantees" provided in committee: exemption from medical confidentiality limited in duration - that of the state of health emergency -, and the scope - only the data concerning infection with the virus.

They refused to empower the government to legislate by orders on this issue and created a supervisory body, which the government did not object to. They also provided for the possibility of refusing to be registered in the patient tracking file, for example for people who had been wrongly designated as having been in contact with a patient.

Finally, they explicitly excluded that the text could serve as a legal basis for the deployment of the StopCovid smartphone application. But "there is no link between article 6 and StopCovid," insisted Olivier Véran.

The senators also Tuesday evening scheduled a "compliant" opinion of the National Commission for Data Protection (Cnil) on the information system.

Read also: Deconfinement: tracking down without giving up public freedoms, the hard equation

The government has sought in vain to remove the patient's right of opposition, the time-bounding of the device as well as its targeting on the Covid-19, wishing to leave the possibility of adding additional health data. Several political groups were divided, in particular the elected members of the Centralist Union and the socialists, some judging imperative the consent of the sick or the respect of medical confidentiality. Others were fiercely opposed to the device, even amended, like the Communists opposed to a "derogatory system" .