Personal Data Protection in Telemedicine

The paper focuses on the issues of personal data protection in telemedicine. The relevance of these issues is predetermined by rapid development of information technologies in different areas of public relations, particularly in medicine. The key problem is that the actual legislation on personal data protection does not adequately meet the challenges of telemedicine. Rather than facilitating technological development the law creates unreasonable barriers for introducing innovations in health care. Modern information and communication technologies require a free and secure information exchange among all actors of the telemedicine relationships. The main purpose of this study is to develop recommendations for ensuring an optimal model of personal data protection in telemedicine. Particular attention is paid to the delimitation of the scope between legislation on personal data and regulations on medical secrets. Also the paper highlights the approaches to legal framework for medical information systems. Finally, the main objects of the study are the principles of personal data protection in telemedicine (requirements for informed consent, purposes of processing, special rules for data controllers and data processors, obligations to ensure confidentiality and security of processing, etc.). The overall idea of the study is the necessity for a comprehensive and coherent adaptation of the legislation on personal data to telemedicine. The paper reasons the thesis that in the digital age the principles of personal data protection need fundamental reconsideration. In the long term the relevance of such reconsideration will only increase. Methodological basis of this research includes comparative legal method (the study focuses on legislation of the EU and the US), method of legal modeling, analysis of judicial practice and other research techniques.