Keep this data that I cannot see. This is the whole debate of the healthcare community and scientists around the data collected during the first wave of coronavirus and deconfinement. Should they be kept to have very practical information in the event of a second wave, or should they be deleted to preserve the private and personal life of patients? The Scientific Council responsible for enlightening the government on Covid-19 considers an increase in the circulation of the coronavirus in the fall "extremely probable", and therefore recommends to keep the health data collected during the epidemic. The extension of the data retention period (which makes it possible to detect and isolate the contacts of sick people) is provided for by the bill on the end of the health emergency, debated in the Senate from Monday.
But this is controversial: the Order of Physicians has already expressed its "deep concern" faced with the hypothesis of an extension of this duration, for reasons of confidentiality. "These data will remain extremely valuable as long as the threat of a resumption of the circulation of the virus on French territory persists", judges for its part the Scientific Council, in an opinion made public on Monday.
A "single source of information"
According to him, "an intensification of the circulation of SARS-CoV-2 in the northern hemisphere at a more or less distant time (a few months, and in particular with the approach of winter) is extremely probable". "In this context, we believe it is essential to keep the data for research and epidemiological monitoring", insists the Scientific Council.
According to him, they are "a unique source of information (...) in order to understand the dynamics of the spread of the virus, and to assess the impact of the various measures to control (its) circulation".
A liberticide or protective project?
"The conservation must be done in a pseudonymized form and not simply anonymized", recommends the Council. This will allow "that the data of the same individual, non-identifying, can still be linked together (eg documentation of a reinfection), or linked with data from other databases".
"For comparison, the data on notifiable diseases, of which COVID-19 is a part, are generally stored in directly identifying form for a period of 12 months, before being stored in pseudonymized form for periods of up to at 25 for reportable diseases under investigation such as tuberculosis, "notes the Council.
Before arriving at the Senate, the bill organizing the exit from the state of health emergency after July 10 was adopted at first reading, with the support of elected officials LREM, MoDem and Agir. Oppositions on the right and on the left, on the other hand, deemed it "liberticide".
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- Personal data
- Society
- Covid 19
- Deconfinement
- epidemic
- Coronavirus