Digital Health Services Through the Lens of Data Privacy

Abstract

Pandemic has showcased to the world the need for having seamless health data exchange. One of the major reasons for India’s success in vaccinating her vast population is use of digital technology to ensure an easy mechanism for the people to register for vaccinations, get appointment dates as well as the jabs itself. This ease of use has made even the rural population appreciate the need for seamless data exchange to provide excellent health care. Keep this viewpoint in mind, the Indian government has chosen to usher in unique health id for each person based on their KYC / Aadhar card number. This is a welcome change albeit riddled with privacy concerns. In this article the author seeks to analyze the strength of digital health data framework upon the touchstone of privacy and informed consent. The author seeks to find out if the existing policies and laws are strong enough to ally privacy concerns or if there is an emergent need to ensure that unique digital health id does not result in data and privacy breaches across the digital health data framework. The author also seeks to find out if the data policies of the government are followed in practice at the ground level, wherein the people might be unaware of ‘informed consent.’