Health insurance companies may not permanently save the insured photo

BSG calls for deletion after production of the health card

After producing an "electronic health card", the health insurance companies have to delete the photo used for this purpose. The customary permanent storage violates data protection law without the consent of the insured, judged on Tuesday, 18 December 2018, the Federal Social Court (BSG) in Kassel (Az .: B 1 KR 31/17).

The electronic health cards have been issued by the health insurance since 2013. Their use has been mandatory since the beginning of 2014, and since 2015 service providers are no longer allowed to accept any other proof. The cards have a photo of the insured and a memory chip. So far, only the same "master data" that used to be printed on the card, including name, date of birth, address and gender, is stored on it. In the future, more data will be stored, such as the blood type, allergies and other important diseases.

The photos should in particular prevent misuse. So far, the health insurance companies routinely save it until the end of the insurance relationship and also use it for later or replacement cards.

A member of the Techniker Krankenkasse saw this as a violation of the right to informational self-determination. With his complaint, he last asked for the deletion of the photo after making the card.

The Techniker health insurance company said the photos would be securely stored, and the data protection was guaranteed. Deletion would incur unnecessary costs. Even today, about 10,000 photos would be sent to the cash register every day. Among them are also picture jokes, such as a teddy bear or a penguin. The photos must therefore always be checked and processed technically.

In contrast to the lower courts, the BSG nevertheless rated the data protection higher. In any case, without the consent of the insured, the data protection regulations allowed the processing and storage of personal data and thus of the photo only for the specific purpose - here, therefore, the production of the health card. Thereafter, the health insurance would have to delete the photo.

The SPG had already decided on November 18, 2014 that the insured persons must provide the health insurances with a photograph (ref .: B 1 KR 35/13 R, JurAgentur notification of the sentencing date). The photo was "suitable and necessary to counter abusive uses". mwo / fle