The introduction of COVID passes as positive discrimination would not be a violation of human rights, according to Milan Marinovic, Serbia's Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Protection of Personal Data.

„When I mention positive discrimination, I speak about COVID passes allowing people entry into a larger shopping mall, theatres, concert halls, sports events…“ he told the public RTS broadcaster on Tuesday.

Marinovic said that harmful discrimination would be if people were conditioned to have COVID passes for work, doctors, or school.

„Who has access to the data needed for COVID passes, the way they are stored or given to someone, should be controlled. But, since such data are already available at e-government and in other registers, their usage for the passes should not be a problem,“ Marinovic said.

The Commissioner added that, as the situation with the coronavirus deteriorated, „we are getting closer to COVID passes“.

„Since the number of infected people is not decreasing, the number of deaths is not decreasing, we are certainly closer because something must be done to curb this madness. There are positive experiences from countries that have introduced them (COVID passes),“ Marinovic said.

He added the COVID passes’ main gain would be to motivate as many people as possible to vaccinate and that young people were the primary target.