German firms seek details of employees’ vaccine status

Germany has tough laws regulating data privacy because of its history of Nazi and Communist state surveillance of citizens.

The German government is looking into whether it could temporarily ease data privacy rules to allow companies to find out whether their employees are vaccinated against COVID-19, ministers said on Wednesday. Many countries are making vaccination mandatory for healthcare staff and public sector workers and some companies – particularly in the United States – have started demanding that employees are inoculated. But Germany has tough laws regulating data privacy because of its history of Nazi and communist state surveillance of citizens, meaning that companies have no right to find out about health issues relating to their staff.