How the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2023 Safeguard Healthcare Privacy

In an era where technology is the defining trend of the 21st century Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), an Act that has changed the game in data privacy regulation, especially as pertains to telemedicine and health cyber security. As digital technologies such as telemedicine platforms are embraced by the health industry, Protection of confidential personal information has become paramount. This article aims to examine how the provision related to Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 relates with telemedicine regulations, data privacy and cyber security within healthcare sector.

OVERVIEW OF DIGITAL PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION BILL, 2023:

The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 has been proposed to regulate the personal data of an individual in India its processing, storage, collection and transfer. It introduces measure to protect self-identification self-reporting and self-governance for the responsibility of dealing with personal data of the Indian citizens by domestic or foreign entities for profit making or charitable purposes.

Key Features include:

Data Processing and Consent: For data protection to take course there is a need to seek permission to take data and further process it, especially what encompasses genuine consent that is particularly mandatory when dealing with health data, and financial data, biometric data and data concerning caste or religion or political opinions and affiliations.

Data Localization: The critical personal data should be stored only in India whereas sensitive personal data may be transferred to countries outside India subject to the fulfillment of two conditions and only with the consent of the data principal.

Rights of Individuals: These are termed as the rights granted to the individuals and include; the right of obtaining a copy of the personal data, right of making corrections, right to block processing of the data, right to obtain a copy of the data in a machine readable form All the above rights will improve control of the personal data.

Accountability and Enforcement: It empowers data fiduciary to set up accountability for proper protection of personal data, to carry out data protection impact assessment, to give necessary notification to authority and to the concerned data subjects in case of data breach. Neglect of such standard increases the possibility whereby very steep penalties might be incurred.

Regulatory Framework: Establishes the Data Protection Authority of India (DPAI) to undertake this task of implementation, enforcement and reporting of this bill regarding violators, and create public awareness on data protection .

Exemptions and Exceptions: There are, of course, some justified legal exemptions for using private information for journalistic, research and other purposes in view of the interest of privacy and public interest.

This bill is a compilation of India’s attempts to see to it that the country comes up with a data protection regime that meets international standards in order to address its own problems. Businesses, officials and consumers are to adapt to the requirements of the bill and adopt appropriate means of collecting, processing and storing individuals’ personal data to encourage the improvement of the climate of trust and create an appropriate environment for digital activities in India.

IMPACT IN HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY:

  • It will make healthcare providers and entities adapt to privacy and data responsibility measures among them being to seek consent, ensure security, undertake data protection impact assessment, and designate data protection officers. 
  • It will improve the patients’ trust and confidence while using their personal health data which on the law is considered to be sensitive personal data. 
  • It will develop new possibilities for successful experimentation and partnership in utilizing PHS for research, epidemic monitoring, emergency management, and many other purposes cautiously and in adherence to specific requirements and precautions. 
  • It will also bring issues to the development and implementation of data driven technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning where there is always a risk of compromising patient data rights. 
  • The bill enhances data control by endorsing data minimization, purpose limitation and localization of data and increases efficiency of the data control by convincing the providers of healthcare to limit their data control exercises where unnecessary.

SUGGESTIONS:

  • The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023 is aimed at safeguarding health care information through the execution of advanced encryption protocols, compliance audits, Consent management, Imposition of penalties, data portability, and professional training. 
  • Encrypt medical records, implement sector-specific guidelines, conduct periodic audits, require informed consent, and impose harsh penalties in the event of a data breach, among many other key provisions to ensure data protection.

All these include promoting data portability and interoperability in the healthcare sector as well as raising education on the aspect of data privacy among professionals, along with engaging collaboration with both the technical experts and the data privacy advocates for sensitive health data protection.

CONCLUSION:-

Healthcare privacy in India has been provided with a great legal protection by the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2023. This, in return, will promote a secure a trustworthy environment in the digital healthcare parameter as the bill seeks to improve consent mechanisms, protect heath data and make the public more in charge of their own data. Healthcare providers and relevant digital health platforms integrate with these new regulations, patients get more confident about their health information data privacy and security hence a safer health system.

AUTHOR: Paladugu Hari Priya, a 5th Year student of BBA.LLB from Koneru Lakshmaih University, Guntur

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