The European Data Protection Law Review is issuing a call for papers for a Special Issue on Health Data, Medicine, and the General Data Protection Regulation:
“The European Data Protection Law Review (EDPL) has an open call for original research papers
for a thematic special issue on health/medical data, e-health and digital medicine within the
new legal framework of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The widespread use of digital technologies and the extensive collection of data concerning
health and behaviour of individuals, often through the passive use of wearables and sensors,
is an irreversible and revolutionary trend in all the areas of medicine, including clinical practice,
disease management, disease prevention and scientific research. More importantly, the use of
automated systems, algorithms and artificial intelligence is potentially challenging the traditional
scientific, evidence-based standards of medical conduct, opening the door to a more inference-based,
experimental methodology for understanding complex issues such as the causes
of certain physical and biological effects. A data-driven approach to medicine has the potential
to identify with more precision cause and effects of diseases with respect to a single patient
and hence to tailor or “personalise” treatments making them more effective. At the same time,
substantial risks are emerging with regard to the loss of the traditional trust-based, personal
relationship between patients and physicians, the risk of biased, unreliable and unverifiable algorithmic
results (“black box medicine”), hidden forms of unethical discriminations or manipulations
of those vulnerable individuals who are patients.
The debate on these issues must be broad and open to different perspectives. This special issue
of EDPL will explore the impact of the new EU data protection legislation in the field of medicine
and health by looking at the following topics:
- Anonymisation and pseudonymisation of health and genetic data
- Data portability as applicable to the medical/health data
- Legal grounds for processing health/genetic data other than consent in particular Article 9 g-i-h-j of GDPR
- National conditions and limitations for the use of health and genetic data
- Intersection between GDPR and Regulation on Clinical Trial (Regulation (EU) 536/2014)
- Secondary use of health data and research exemption
- Ethical and legal issues of artificial intelligence (AI) systems applied to health data/medicine.”
Deadline for submissions is July 15, 2018. For more information, see the official call for papers.
