Digital Health Interface: Balance between User’s Health Information and Data Utility

Abstract

Health data can come from a variety of sources. These data are collected by clinics, healthcare providers, health care devices, diagnostic centers, etc and stored in their respective repositories for future use and processing. While digitalising health records have various benefits for future research and treatment, but these health data come with its share of issues of privacy. The problem of safeguarding an individual’s privacy and sensitive personal information like health data is increasing each day with evolution of new technologies and methods to process data.

Accessing and utilizing the heath data is important to individual’s health and challenging for protection of public health and privacy. Health data can boost the health of individual with drug discovery, prevention of serious health hazard, precision of diagnosis, and at the same time can prove to be dangerous when there is no regulation and control in the processing and collection of these data which an entity might use in a perverse manner. In India there are laws regarding right to privacy and judicial remedies are also available for such breaches but there is no specific legislation with respect to the health care data breach. The paper analyses secondary information and a primary survey discusses the policies to support the utility aspect and privacy problems concerning Indian digital healthcare systems.