Policy and law of big data use in health care

ABSTRACT

According to Article 17 of the Korean Constitution, the privacy of no citizen shall be infringed. There have been considerable advances in the fields of computers and communications technology in the late 20th century. However, processing large amounts of personal information has caused many problems. In Korea, incidents of personal information leakage have been occurring frequently. To solve these problems, the Personal Information Protection Act was enacted in 2011. The most significant feature of this Act is that it applies not only to public institutions, but also to corporate bodies, organizations, and individuals who manage personal information. However, the Act does not allow the management of personal information for public purposes such as public health. Recently, the European Parliament has adopted a legislative resolution on the proposed European Union General Protection Regulation. This regulation allows the management of personal information for public health, reflecting the opinions of European public health experts. According to Article 81 of the proposed regulation, processing of personal data concerning health is permitted for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, medical diagnosis, the provision of care or treatment, or the management of health-care services. It is also permitted for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, such as protecting against serious cross-border threats to health or ensuring high standards of quality and safety for medicinal products or medical devices and reasons of public interest in areas such as social protection, in order to ensure the quality and cost-effectiveness of the health insurance system and the provision of health services. The proposed regulation is an example of the balance of privacy and public interest in the management of personal information. Although the management of personal information is allowed in the public interest without the consent of the subject of the information, all measures should be taken for privacy protection. It is time for Korea to take legislative steps for the management of personal health information for public health under conditions of strict privacy protection measures.