HEALTH DATA AND RIGHT

TO PRIVACY

Presented by
G. Roshini
School of Excellence in Law
Tamil Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, Chennai
 FLOW

 Concept
 Objective
 Physician’s Duty
 Patient’s Right
 Legislation
 Summary
 Conclusion
 Future Work
 CONCEPT

Privacy:
Freedom from public attention,
secret surveillance, unauthorised
disclosure of one’s personal data
or information.
Health database:
Digitisation of health records i.e.
transformation from paper to
electronic data.
 OBJECTIVE

Objective of this study is to

 ensure To study the privacy rights of the citizens especially
with respect to health data.
 To analyse the duty of physicians duty to maintain secrecy of
patients
 PHYSICIAN’S DUTY

Duty of a physician is of two kinds:

• Duty to disclose includes physicians
duty to disclose patients their
personal information.
• Duty not to disclose to anyone other
than the patient without his consent.
 PHYSICIAN’S DUTY (Contd…)

• Duty to give a detailed account for what purpose patients

information is used while getting consent.
• Duty to be done is regulated by code of ethics.
Exceptions:
Any disclosure
a) By order of court
b) Considering public interest at large
c) By obtaining consent from the patient
 PATIENT’S RIGHT

• Patients shall have the right to privacy with respect to

their own health records.
• In Cruzan v. Missouri case the SC of USA held that right
of a patient includes choice of death as an aspect of right
of privacy.
Held: “Person in persistent vegetative state shall have right to
Euthenasia”
 LEGISLATIONS

Various legislations under various countries highlight

provisions to maintain privacy
INDIA
• Using patient’s personal information
for research purposes created
necessity for an enactment.
• This led to Ethical Guidelines for
Biomedical Research on Human
Subjects, protecting patients privacy.
US
• In Whalen v. Roe SC recognised
the right to health information
privacy in 1977.
• This led to The Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA)
 LEGISLATIONS (Contd…)

USA and Canada legislations have an

exclusive enactment to maintain
health data privacy unlike India which
include
• HIPAA
• Personal Health Information Act
 SUMMARY

• Health databases in electronic form has both advantages and

disadvantages
Advantages:
• Easy to maintain
• Quick access
• Immediate transfer of data can save life
Disadvantages:
• Fear of hackers
• Major threat to privacy
 CONCLUSION

• Judgement in Justice K S Puttaswamy case is that right to

privacy is a fundamental right. As a result this imposes duty
upon the State to safeguard citizens from any infringement
of right to privacy.
• Privacy rights include patients rights to maintain secrecy of
his health records.
 FUTURE WORK

Prepare a proposal to bring an exclusive enactment to

maintain privacy of health data of patients in India as in
western countries to ensure the protection of privacy rights.
Thank You