Introduction

This chapter discusses the right to privacy and data protection in the context of healthcare, with a strong emphasis on the latter. In this sector, three spheres of privacy are necessarily interfered with. Firstly, private life and physical integrity are necessarily affected by medical actions. Secondly, local/spatial privacy concerns may rise during medical research, treatment, and stay in care institutions. Thirdly, informational privacy is at play. This concerns the processing of medical personal data, the control that patients can exercise over their medical data, and the obligation of doctors to keep medical personal data confidential. This section mainly focuses on informational privacy and data protection. It explains the concepts in the context of regulations.

First of all, section 2 describes the role and function of informational privacy protection within the healthcare sector. Subsequently, section 3 discusses the basic texts and authors. In section 4 the most important schools of thought and discussions about privacy in relation to the healthcare sector are briefly discussed. Subsequently, section 5 focuses on current and future changes and dilemmas and ends with a number of conclusions and recommended literature.

The role and function of informational privacy protection within the healthcare sector

The domain of healthcare is broad and hardly definable. It covers various sub-areas that vary from the treatment and care of patients (in hospitals and nursing homes) to the life science industry that is focused on the development of medical devices, medicines, and new technologies. Within these sub-areas, the focus of this chapter is on privacy protection within the field of nursing and care, also referred to as the care and cure sector.

Confidentiality vis-à-vis privacy in healthcare

Privacy protection within the healthcare sector is first of all/primarily associated with medical confidentiality. This is no surprise, as the concept of medical confidentiality addresses the sensitive nature of medical personal data, that obviously warrants protection. Nevertheless, medical-professional confidentiality or secrecy is only partially recognized in international treaties and is predominantly subject to national regulation. The most important international source of medical-professional confidentiality is the International Code of Medical Ethics of the World Medical Association.