Minister wants to use restaurant reservations for contact research at corona

Minister De Jonge of Public Health wants the GGD to be able to use reservation data from, among other things, the catering industry to trace corona patients. This should be possible in the context of contact investigation.

By viewing reservations, health organizations can see who an infected person may have come into contact with. Customers of catering institutions must give explicit permission for this, the minister writes in a letter to the House of Representatives. De Jonge says he will be in contact with the catering sector to see what that permission could look like. The minister also wants to see whether reservation data from other sectors can be useful in source and contact research.

Another part of the source and contact investigation is the corona app, with which citizens receive a notification via Bluetooth if they have been in contact with a corona patient. De Jonge also writes in his letter that he wants to start a practical test of the app from the second half of June. This happens in certain regions, although the minister does not say which region it concerns. During the trial, the minister will look at ‘the epidemiological value, the technical functioning, and the user experience’, he writes. The app must be completed before the summer holidays.

At the same time, the minister is working on a bill that prohibits misuse of the corona apps by third parties. De Jonge does not say what that bill will look like. At the same time, the minister wants to lay down in the Police Data Act that the GGDs can use digital support for source and contact investigations.