“An ethical fault” with heavy consequences for its authors.

The caregivers who shared on social networks the QR code of Emmanuel Macron's health pass "have been identified", Health Insurance said on Wednesday September 22, specifying that a referral to their professional orders was "in progress". 

The Order of Physicians for its part indicated having "immediately requested transmission by the National Health Insurance Fund (Cnam) of the identity of the doctors at the origin of this disclosure, in order to transmit them to the departmental councils of their places exercise, which will rule on the disciplinary action to be taken ". "The National Council of the Order of Physicians will also rule on the follow-up that it will give in its own name to this serious breach of medical confidentiality", continues the ordinal jurisdiction. 

The QR code of Emmanuel Macron's health pass had been shared in recent days on several social networks. It had the president's name and date of birth on it. The Élysée has confirmed to AFP the authenticity of the document, deploring that health professionals have consulted the vaccine file of the President of the Republic - including the famous QR code - and have circulated the data "either through negligence, either by embezzlement ". 

"It is an ethical fault, [and] the Cnam seized the National Council of the Order of Physicians, which is the competent body for matters concerning ethics in the health sector", declared Gabriel Attal, government spokesperson. "There is no technical flaw in the system which [it] led to a leak of the President of the Republic's QR code," he recalled. All health professionals have access to the centralized computer system set up as part of the vaccination campaign. 

"This is what allowed health professionals to know, when a patient presented himself, when [and] where had he had his first dose, which made it possible to adapt the places and to be able to do his first [dose] in one place and his second dose in another ", according to Gabriel Attal. 

Last week, it was the QR code of Prime Minister Jean Castex, which had been broadcast on social networks, according to a different procedure: Internet users had managed to scan the code from a press photo on which the head of government presented his health pass at the entrance of a public place.

Since then, the QR codes of the two heads of the executive which had been disseminated have been replaced. 

According to the National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (Cnil), "the integration of health passes into an exclusion list aimed at allowing the revocation of certificates is possible subject to the consent of the persons concerned; in other words, the revocation is only possible when a person requests that their own pass be deactivated, because it has been lost or copied and is afraid of fraud ”.

The QR code of health passes contains the identity of its holder and information on his vaccination status or immunity. 

With AFP

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