COVID-19 ADMINISTRATIVE DECREE UPDATE (GAZİANTEP)

In accordance with the Decision of Gaziantep Provincial Public Health Committee numbered 2020/99 and dated 05/11/2020, workplaces in Gaziantep with 10 and more employees are required to get HES Codes of employees (and potentially visitors, see below). It has been decided that an administrative fine will be imposed on those who fail to comply with the precautions and the taken decisions, in accordance with Article 282 of Public Health Code. Also It has been decided that judicial proceeding will be initiated within the scope of Turkish Criminal Code in case of detecting a criminal conduct. Fort his reason, you sould start the aplication stated below as soon as possible, in your workplaces. Because, If there is a deficiency in the audit to be carred out administrative fines may be encountered as stated below. In addition, since the failure of the employer to comply with the decision of the competent authorities regarding infectious diseases will constitute a crime in accordance with Article 195 of the Turkish Criminal Code, the employer will also be deemed to have committed this crime.

The following steps need to be followed for the HES Code registration of the employees:

1. First of all, employees will log onto https://giris.turkiye.gov.tr . They will receive a “Indefinite-term HES Code (Süresiz HES Kodu)”  from the “HES Code Generation and Listing (HES Kodu Oluşturma ve Listeleme)” section and inform the relevant person (e.g. manager).
2. The relevant person (e.g. manager) will log onto their “e-devlet” account (on web or mobile) at https://giris.turkiye.gov.tr, and type “Collective HES Code Inquiry (Toplu HES Kodu Sorgulama)” in the search section. The HES Codes of the employees will be saved here by clicking on the “Creat New Group (Yeni Grup Oluştur)” button on the page.
3. After saving the HES codes of employees, the relevant person (e.g. manager) will be able to inquire about the HES Codes of their employees on the Collective HES Code Inquiry screen, and get infromation  about the condition and risk of virus infection, and take necessary precautions.

Points to take into consideration:

• There is no clarity in the decision of the Committee as to who the related person is, so we recommend that this liability be entrusted to the most senior manager or country director, as data are recorded in the e-devlet account of the relevant person (e.g. manager).
• There is no clarity in the decision of the Committee as to how often the inquiry will be made on e-devlet, so we recommend that the inquiry is made every day.
• The administrative decree does not stipulate whether HES codes of visitors should also be screened. We recommend that visitors who enter the office are also asked to share their HES code. This code can be queried for potential health risk on the following page https://www.turkiye.gov.tr/saglik-bakanligi-hes-kodu-sorgulama. The HES code screening of visitors may be performed by the receptionists or security guards too.
• In order to prevent the breach of the law on the proteciton of personal data, the clarification text prepared in Turkish and English should be posted on the workplace’s entrance door or reception area. (Attached)

What is a HES Code?

HES Code is a personal code implemented by the Ministry of Health in order to track individuals who are COVID-19 positive or recently have had contact with a positive patient. You can get your personal code via the Hayat Eve Sığar mobile app, the e-Government portal, or by sending a text message to 2023 that includes the following: HES TR ID No, the last four digits of the serial number on your ID card and the number of days, ensuring that there is a single space between all (Example: HES 12345678901 5376 30). Individuals whose Foreigner’s ID No start with 97, 98, and 99 can obtain a HES code by sending a text message to 2023 (only Turkish GSM operators) starting with HES and continuing with TR ID number, date of birth (year), and the number of days for which HES code should remain valid, ensuring that there is a single space between all fields.