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Verdict Health insurance companies are not allowed to save insured photos permanently
Health insurance companies are not allowed to permanently save the photos of their insured persons received for the electronic health card. A storage in stock would contradict the requirement of data avoidance and frugality and violate the right to informational self-determination, the Berlin Social Court ruled in a recently published final judgment (Ref .: S 208 KR 2111/16).
No long-term storage of insured photos. (Image: Stock Photos-MG / fotolia.com) Since 2015, the electronic health card has been the only valid proof of a statutory health insurance. The "master data" of the insured person is stored on the chip, including name, date of birth, address and gender. To prevent misuse of the health card, it also includes a photo of the insured person.
In the specific case, a Berliner delivered a guerrilla war with his health insurance company because of the issuance of his electronic health card. At first he refused several times to send a photo. He demanded a health card without a photo. He can prove his identity with the identity card.
The man feared that his photograph, once stored in digital form, could not be controlled. If the data ever fall into the "wild" or unauthorized hands, they would "no longer be caught," the insured. His right to his own image would be violated with the obligatory photo transmission.
Finally, he sent several pictures to his cash register, all of which were so fuzzy that the insured person was not recognizable. At the same time he demanded from his health insurance company the assurance that they will not permanently store these or future photos.
The health insurance insisted on the permanent storage of the insured photo. This would be needed if the health card is lost.
In court, the insured now demanded that the fund is committed to future sent photos not to save.
The Social Court rightly upheld the man in his June 27, 2017 ruling. In order to be able to issue an electronic health card, insured persons would, in addition to their basic data, in principle also have to send a "current photo". A storage of social data, including the photograph counts, but only allowed if they are necessary for the purposes of health insurance.
After issuing the health card, the health insurance company does not need the picture anymore. It serves the sole purpose that the identity of the insured can be checked at a glance at the doctor. A permanent storage in stock is not required. It would therefore oppose the requirement of data avoidance and parsimony and violate the right to informational self-determination. If the insured needed a new health card, he could easily submit a new and current photo.
However, insured persons would have to accept temporary storage, according to the Sozialgericht with a reference to a decision of the Federal Social Court of 18 November 2014 (Ref .: B 1 KR 35/13 R, JurAgentur notification from the day of the judgment). In it, the Kassel judges had approved the electronic health card and the associated storage of social data.
Since the introduction of the electronic health card, courts have had to deal with numerous complaints by critically insured persons. For example, according to a ruling by the Landessozialgericht (LSG) of Baden-Württemberg dated January 24, 2017, insured persons can not request a health card without a photograph for religious reasons (Ref .: L 11 KR 3562/16, JurAgentur Report dated 3 April 2017). At most, certain modifications could be allowed, such as an exception to the ban on headgear.
Also, the health insurance would not have to pay the passport photo costs incurred for the health card, said the LSG Rhineland-Palatinate in a decision of 20 March 2014 (Ref .: L 5 KR 32/14 NZB).
Even if the health insurance companies emphasize the necessity of the photo on the health card for the later identity determination, the submitted photos do not always look so closely. This is how the Berlin BKK VBU got into the headlines because they easily printed the photo sent by an insured person on his health card. On the picture was the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. fle / mwo / fle