Obligation Of Confidentiality Research Articles

Istota tajemnicy ubezpieczeniowej ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem odpowiedzialności za jej naruszenie

Insurance secrecy is a public law institution that has been introduced to the private system. The purpose of this institution is to protect constitutional guarantees such as the right to privacy, and also to protect human rights. This fact gives rise to the entity’s broad liability for breach of insurance secrecy. You can see civil liability as a contractual breach and tort liability. In addition, the entity obliged to maintain insurance secrecy that violates this obligation may be affected by criminal liability, the basis of which is found in several acts. It is also worth highlighting the role of administrative responsibility, in which a breach of the obligation of confidentiality is treated as an administrative tort. Due to the above, the essence of insurance secrecy is to provide protection under civil, criminal and administrative law.

COVID-19 Salgını Süresince Eğitim Hakkı, Fırsat Eşitliği ve Sınavlara İlişkin Temel Problemler

This article focuses on the possible effects of government measures against the Covid-19 pandemic on the right to education. Special emphasis is given to the principle of equality of opportunity. The first part is a discussion of the problems presented by the CESCR, CEDAW, CRC, OHCHR, and OECD concerning the right to education due to Covid-19. The second part of the article focuses on the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on the right to education and compares previous cases to potential claims due to the pandemic. Potential claims might concern restricted access to education due to illness; unequal access to education due to disabilities or financial disadvantage; the lack of equality of opportunity in university entrance exams; and also concerns about school health services and their obligation of confidentiality. Complaints about these issues may concern government measures taken against Covid-19. Additionally, the right to education must be understood as the right to quality education. The final part of the study discusses the Turkish administrative jurisdiction and emphasizes the importance of a human rights-based approach to public order, and reviews various discussions concerning the eventual liability of the administration for losses resulting from Covid-19 measures. Finally, these claims are examined through a review of different examples, concluding with suggested solutions to the identified problems. 

Obligation or Voluntary Disclosure of Medical Confidentiality

Abstract The relationship between the patient and medical personnel, related to the satisfying of health needs, is covered by the principle of confidentiality, and the question of possible disclosure requires a statutory basis defined in a strict manner, with the principle of minimisation also imposed by law. The wording of the statutory exceptions does not imply explicitly that the absence of the obligation to maintain secrecy is tantamount to the obligation to disclose it. As a general rule, a doctor is obliged to be discreet, while with regard to exceptions only “the provision does not apply”. The question arises whether and under what circumstances this obligation to disclose exists, and whether it can be legally enforced. There are no clear obligations for the doctor, nor for the amendment of the regulations, allowing the disclosure of medical secrets after the patient’s death with the consent of a close relative, nor the release of secrets by a court in non-contentious proceedings. The place where a doctor released from secrecy should disclose it is only the court conducting a trial in a specific case, when the doctor is summoned as a witness. Medical confidentiality therefore retains its special status, but a change that allows the court to break the patient’s previous objection to it is detrimental to the most personal legal interests of persons who can no longer feel safe with their secrets. It is also a disgrace to doctors who are being urged to break their silence, contrary to fundamental deontological principles. However, the wording of the regulations allows for evasion, dictated by loyalty to the deceased patient who entrusted his/her secrets in the trust that they will be kept even after death.

Medical Secrecy and the Right of a Person Close to a Patient to Medical Information – Discussion Contribution

Abstract The purpose of this article is to attempt to present the institution of medical law, which is medical confidentiality, to define it, to highlight the most important features, and then to contrast it with the right to medical information of a relative of a patient, as a law competing with the need to maintain medical confidentiality. The work begins with a description of the right to privacy as a source of medical confidentiality. Then, an attempt is made to determine the subjective and objective scope of confidentiality obligations imposed on entities providing medical services, while indicating the situations in which this obligation is lifted. Medical secrecy is presented as the obligation of medical personnel reflecting the patient’s right to information, with particular emphasis on the right to access medical records. The thesis was made that the patient is the only holder of information about him/her who has the right to voluntarily extend this right to other entities by authorization. In opposition, specific legal norms have been articulated for these considerations, which give the right to medical information on the patient’s state of health to those close to him/her, without the consent or knowledge of the person concerned. Particular attention is paid to the regulations regarding the application of medical confidentiality after the patient’s death. In the course of the argument, doubts related to the correctness of introducing the discussed provisions into the Polish legal system are indicated.

Dead Ringers? Legal Persons and the Deceased in European Data Protection Law

Notwithstanding suggestions that the treatment of legal and deceased person data during European data protection’s development has been broadly comparable, this paper finds that stark divergences are in fact apparent. Despite early fusion, legal persons have been increasingly seen to have lesser and, more importantly, qualitatively different information entitlements compared to natural persons, thereby leaving European data protection with a very limited and indirect role here. In contrast, natural persons and the deceased have not been conceived as normatively dichotomous and since the 1990s there has been growing interest both in establishing sui generis direct protection for deceased data and also indirect inclusion through a link with living natural persons. Whilst the case for some indirect inclusion is overwhelming, a broad approach to the inter-relational nature of data risks further destabilizing the personal data concept. Nevertheless, given that jurisdictions representing almost half of the EEA’s population now provide some direct protection and the challenges of managing digital data on death continue to grow, the time may be ripe for a ‘soft’ recommendation on direct protection in this area. Drawing on existing law and scholarship, such a recommendation could seek to specify the role of both specific control rights and diffuse confidentiality obligations, the criteria for time-limits in each case and the need for a balance with other rights and interests which recognises the significantly decreasing interest in protection over time.

Empowering knowledge generation through international data network: the IMeCCHI-DATANETWORK.

IntroductionThe International Methodology Consortium for Coded Health Information (IMeCCHI) is a collaboration of health services researchers who promote methodological advances in coded health information. The IMeCCHI-DATANETWORK initiative focuses on developing a multi-purpose distributed data infrastructure and common data model (CDM) to enable cross-border data sharing and international comparisons.MethodsIMeCCHI consortium partners from six different countries – Canada, Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, South Korea, and Switzerland – used a questionnaire to describe their original databases which differ in size, structure, content and coding systems. To standardize these data, they agreed on a CDM and mapped their population-based databases to meet the CDM specifications. At the end of this process, local data had a more homogenous content and structure, which made them syntactically and semantically interoperable. Data transformation was performed using a common data management software called TheMatrix. ResultsThe CDM encompasses four tables of structured data (person characteristics, hospitalizations, outpatient prescription medication and death), linked at the individual level through a person identifier. It can be used to answer research questions across countries using locally converted databases, which facilitates study replication in a distributed fashion. As a proof-of-concept study, an initial research question was addressed using an agreed protocol. Local data were transformed in csv files in the CDM structure and TheMatrix was tested to transform the standardized data from each partner into local analytical datasets. This allowed results to be shared between countries, whilst maintaining local control over each region’s data.ConclusionThe IMeCCHI-DATANETWORK, a model of a distributed data network, demonstrated that it is feasible to analyze international data using standardized analytical methods that enable independent analyses by regions, without relocating datasets thereby protecting local confidentiality obligations. The distributed data infrastructure can produce results that can be generalized to several countries, while facilitating cross-border data sharing and international comparisons.KeywordsCommon data model, international comparison, cross-border data sharing, interoperability, observational data

Careless whispers: confidentiality and board-level worker representatives

PurposeThe article focuses on the role that ‘confidential information’ plays in relation to the work of board-level worker representatives, and their interaction with other worker participation mechanisms. Thus, the purpose of the paper is to explore the implications of confidentiality of board-level information for effective worker participation. The main argument is that if board-level worker representatives are excessively constrained by confidentiality provisions, their capacity to work effectively is brought into question.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research was undertaken on a sample of 12 public limited companies in Slovenia. In each company, three interviews were conducted: with the CEO or board member, with a board-level worker representative and with a works councilor, who was not a board-level worker representative (36 interviews in total). Each of these interviewees has a particular role, and interest, in handling confidential information. Thus, a method of triangulation by groups was employed. The interviews were conducted at the company premises during October and November 2017. The results were analysed by the content analysis method.FindingsThis research confirms that in the majority of companies, nearly all of the material and information discussed by the board is deemed to be ‘confidential’. Consequently, communication between board-level worker representatives and the works council is rendered difficult, if not impossible. The results indicate an urgent need to redefine the concept of confidentiality and to reinforce the level of communication between management boards and works councils.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited to one country, which, by no means, is fatal, as international comparisons, although of greater breadth, often lose some depth of analysis (especially, for example, where there are differences in legal contexts). Although the issues discussed in the paper are of relevance to all those with an interest in worker participation mechanisms, they cannot be generalised mostly due to national specificities.Originality/valueThe question of confidentiality as between the board, board-level worker representatives, works councils, trade unions and other form of worker representation, despite its importance, has been raised quite rarely in research. In this research, three groups of stakeholders (CEO/board member, board-level workers representative and works council members) have been covered, with the aim to extend the understanding of how confidentiality obligations impact relationships between these.

Wyjątki od obowiązku zachowania tajemnicy lekarskiej

The purpose of this paper is to present statutory and non-statutory conditions that must be met in order for the disclosure of information covered by professional confidentiality in relation to the complex doctor–patient relationship to be legitimate. The article discusses the catalog of circumstances excluding the obligation of medical confidentiality, resulting from normative acts of the statutory rank (Act of 5 December 1996 on the professions of physician and dentist, Journal of Laws 1997 No. 28, item 152; Act of 6 November 2008 on patient rights and the Ombudsman for Patient Rights, Journal of Laws 2009 No. 52, item 417), as well as the provisions of the Medical Code of Ethics.

KARAKTERISTIK TINDAKAN TIPPEE DALAM PRAKTIK INSIDER TRAIDING PADA PASAR MODAL INDONESIA

The practice of insider trading is a very neat offense, the object it is working on has been planned carefully and carried out gradually, so it is certainly understandable that to catch the culprit is not an easy matter. Oversight of the Financial Services Authority on the actions of insider trading actors may prevent insider trading practices by certain parties, especially the unregulated tippee (legal vacuum) in the Capital Market Law. This research is a type of normative juridical research by raising legal issues concerning the characteristics of tippee actions in the practice of insider trading on the capital market in Indonesia. The results of the study found that to be a tippee regulated in the Capital Market Law, it is necessary to have an effort from the tippee itself to get inside information, whether by acting against the law or not. From this arises a weakness in the arrangement regarding insider or parties that are prohibited from conducting securities transactions. The weakness is that it does not regulate tippees who get insider information passively (not doing business). Tippees who are prohibited from conducting securities transactions are active tippees who, on their own initiative, seek insider information, where: a). The information is sought by breaking the law, such as by stealing, persuading, violence, or threats, or). The information is with restrictions (such as confidentiality obligations). So the advice that can be given is that it should be made more stringent arrangements related to tippee actions in order to create legal protection against tippee actions in insider trading which is very detrimental to investors. Legal protection is in the form of making legal rules that are fair and dynamic because by enforcing and making legal rules that are fair and dynamic, it will create an investor's trust to invest their capital in the Indonesian capital market.

The uninformed spouse: Balancing confidentiality and other professional obligations.

I use the case study presented by Bawaskar (1), which I refer to as the "The Case of the Uninformed Spouse", to illustrate an ethical conflict between medical confidentiality and the duty to protect and inform an involved third party, who in this case is the patient's spouse. The central question raised by Bawaskar based on this case is, 'Is it the physician's professional obligation to counsel the patient against marriage?' In this commentary, I will attempt to answer this question while also engaging with the ethical conflict in this case and what issues may arise if the physician had indeed considered revealing information to the patient's partner against the wishes of the patient. I engage on the concept of "harm" to discuss the moral scope of the duty to warn an involved third party and when it is justified to breach confidentiality of the patient. Based on the ethical analysis, I conclude that, in this case and in analogous cases, healthcare professionals should not breach the confidentiality of patients and should uphold it as the basis for trust within the doctor-patient relationship. Further, I state that it is part of their professional obligation to advise and provide psychosocial care through counselling to ensure comprehensive care.

Confidentiality in the Electronic World

The Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct (the “Colo. RPC”), as interpreted in the comments to the Colo. RPC, the courts and the Ethics Committee of the Colorado Bar Association, govern lawyers practicing law in Colorado, and in some cases are impacted even when Colorado lawyers are not practicing law. Maintaining the confidentiality of client matters under Rule 1.6 of the Colo. RPC remains as important in electronic communications in the 21st century as it has in decades past. This is not only an issue in Colorado, but it is also an issue under Rule 1.6 of the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct and the comparable rules in all other jurisdictions. Among the confidentiality obligations that should concern attorneys are the powers of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents when attorneys are returning to the United States from abroad - and their power to inspect items returning to the United States - including electronic devices. While the US CBP may recognize claims of attorney-client privilege in most cases, the same may not be true for customs agents when entering into other countries, and attorneys need to be concerned when leaving or returning to the United States. As set forth in news reports, law enforcement in some jurisdictions routinely insist on access to the electronic devices of persons they arrest, and obtain search warrants to back their demands up. Is this a law enforcement tool, an invasion of privacy, or both?. Electronic communications simply make it easier to breach the obligations of confidentiality, and lawyers need to be aware of the potentials for breach. The attorney’s obligations to understand the technology to prevent inadvertent breaches of confidentiality are important aspects of the requirements.

Tajemnica lekarska jako jedna z kluczowych powinności lekarza

The medical secret is one of the most important duties related to the profession. It guarantees confidentiality of patient’s most sensitive data, allows him to build with the doctor a real relationship, based on trust, allows unhampered contacts, excludes third persons from the circle of the interested parties. Medical confidentiality is a significant right of patients, which is protected by law, for breach of which the court can grant a compensation. The disclosure of medical confidentiality may result in a civil liability for a physician who violates protected rights of a patient. Due to the obvious violation of deontological or criminal obligations, the legislator provides ethical liability in the event of an unlawful violation of the obligation of medical confidentiality. All the exceptions to this principle are of high importance as well as the circumstances of the release from medical confidentiality.

Cooperation in confidential withholding of HIV status from partners of sexually-active patients: a role for organisational moral agency.

An increasingly blurred understanding of the conditions under which clinicians may withhold HIV seropositive status from partners of patients who are sexually active and who do not intend to disclose suggests a critical need to revisit the relationship between the principle of confidentiality, the moral and legal duties to warn at-risk third parties, and the organisational ethics surrounding licit cooperation with wrongdoing in the effort to uphold professional moral responsibility. This essay grounds its argument in two, straightforward premises: (i) the ethical principle of cooperation is an indispensable measure of the moral licitness of instances of complicity with wrongdoing; (ii) some instances of material organisational complicity vis-à-vis confidential withholdings of HIV seropositive status from partners of sexually active patients both meet and successfully employ the standards of the ethical principle of cooperation. Drawing from this syllogism, the essay argues that, in Type II cases, healthcare organisations may (initially and on certain conditions) materially cooperate in withholding the HIV seropositive status of patients from partners with whom patients are sexually active, and to whom patients do not intend to disclose HIV seropositive status, in the effort to honour professional obligations of privacy, confidentiality, and fidelity in a manner that is both legally licit and morally justifiable.

Family Screening and Genetic Counseling.

In this brief chapter, clinically very important topics of family screening and genetic counseling are discussed that are also pivotal in endocrine genetics. Genetic screening makes possible to diagnose a genetic disease at an early stage or to exclude its presence. Family members have to be screened if a heritable disease is diagnosed. Personal consultation with the patient and the relatives is inevitable in every genetically determined disease. The main function of genetic counseling is the transfer of important pieces of information to the patient about the congenital or later-manifesting diseases. This process via the informed consent should give enough information to the patient and the relatives to make decisions about the disease. Genetic data should be considered as special data; therefore the protection of the personal data and the confidentiality obligation should be prevailed intensively. The chief goal of the genetic counseling is the prevention of the conception or the birth of a person who would suffer from a severe genetic disease and/or to present information of the chance for having an affected descendant. If the prevention is not feasible, the alternative aim is to prevent the development of the consequences or to moderate its severity. Genetic counseling has important ethical aspects such as prenatal genetic investigations; hereditary, but treatable, nonlethal diseases; and genetic diseases that manifest late, predominantly in the adulthood.

Investigative Delegations: Predictable Predicaments

When a Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) dismissed the court's very first case before trial, it made headlines worldwide. The Trial Chamber dismissed the case because the prosecutor repeatedly failed to disclose exculpatory evidence. He did so because he had obtained the evidence from the UN and NGOs pursuant to confidentiality agreements that prevented disclosure without permission, which the UN and NGOs had not granted. The prosecutor, stuck between two competing obligations—the disclosure obligation that he owed the accused and the confidentiality obligation that he owed the UN—adhered to the latter, a decision that the Trial Chamber deemed to “rupture” the trial process to such a degree that a fair trial was impossible.

Wybrane aspekty tajemnicy w postępowaniu z udziałem nieletniego

This article contains an analysis of selected aspects of secrecy in proceedings with the participation of minors. The analysis of selected legal institutions in the context of secrecy – which is the essence of this article – is preceded by an attempt at explaining the notion of secrecy, including professional secrecy, in the context of proceedings with the participation of minors. It would seem that identifying the elements that make up the essence of secrecy should not cause much trouble: everyone has at some point revealed his/her secret to another person or has been entrusted with one. Nevertheless it is not easy to define this concept in a precise and non-arbitrary way. The situation becomes even more complicated when the secret has anything to do with the law, because even though the legislator defines professional secrecy in several statutes, these definitions do not mention the obligation of confidentiality as such, being limited to determining the scope of such obligation. After the analysis of the definition of secrecy, including professional secrecy, beginning with the dictionary definition and ending with the author’s attempt at formulating her own definition of professional secrecy, the remaining part of the article is devoted to selected aspects of secrecy in criminal proceedings with the participation of a minor, that is, closing the hearing with the participation of a minor to the public and opinions of experts about minors in the context of professional secrecy.

The right of a doctor to inform an employer of contraindications to perform a certain type of work by an employee

The aim of this study is to analyze the legal regulations that pertain to the duty of doctor-patient privilege and the possibility of its repeal on the plane to provide information about the patient’s health status to his employer. The material constitutes the current Polish law regulations relating to the medical duty of doctor–patient privilege as well as provisions defining the scope of information on the patient’s health status that may be transferred to a patient’s employer. The doctor has no right to provide the employer with information on contraindications to perform a specific job, if the information was obtained in the mode of providing health services that are not eligible for the catalogue of preliminary/preventive/control examinations. The basis for the doctor providing information to the employer cannot be an exception to the obligation of medical confidentiality, which is governed by art. 40 § 2 pts 1–6 of the Act of Medical Profession, under which cases of admission of professional secrecy were listed, which makes it impossible to use the cited article in cases other than strictly specified in its content. Polish law specifies the circumstances in which it is possible to provide an employer with the medical information on the patient’s health. However, there are regulations that provide for the information on contraindications to perform a certain type of work or job to be transmitted if the information has been obtained in a manner other than as provided in the ordinance on medical examinations of employees. Med Pr 2018;69(6):613–620

Genetic Risks and Doctors’ Disclosure Obligations — Revisiting the Duty of Confidentiality

Abstract With developments in the field of genetics, new technologies such as genetic testing are fast emerging. Although offering unparalleled opportunities, these developments raise many ethical, legal and other issues. One challenge relates to the duty of confidentiality and disclosure obligations on doctors. Considering the familial nature of genetic information, doctors will increasingly have access to predictive health information, about individuals and individuals’ relatives. This article examines whether disclosure obligations on doctors should be expanded to encompass an obligation to disclose genetic risk to family members, and whether the exceptions to the duty of confidentiality should recognise genetic risk as potential harm. With recognition of the competing rights, the article considers the implications of recent case law in the United Kingdom, indicating a willingness to extend the duty of disclosure. This article argues that there is a case to be made for expanding disclosure obligations on doctors in certain circumstances.

'The Chatbot Will See You Now': Mental Health Confidentiality Concerns in Software Therapy

Woebot, a chatbot leveraging cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, promises to provide a new area of software therapy, in which users can use software to address feelings of anxiety or depression. Similar technologies claim to provide chat or support, but not treatment so as to avod FDA oversight. Regardless, the current privacy framework of the U.S. provides no confidentiality obligations on these apps, even though states provide similar restrictions on use and disclosure on licensed mental health professionals. This Article argues that new legislation is necessary to protect the use and disclosure of information submitted by consumers to chatbots intended for use as electronic therapists. It looks at existing state laws, the senstitivity of mental health information and need for greater confidentaility protections, as well as the Supreme Court opinions in Jaffee v. Redmond as a guide. Ultimately, it concludes that cognitive behaviorally trained therapy A.I. intended for use by consumer as such should be subject to heightened confidentiality requirements.

DEFENSIVE MEDICINE AS A RESULT OF MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE : A BRIEF OVERVIEW

Medical negligence is a topic in tort law which has been widely discussed as good, affordable healthcare, is greatly related to a nation’s proof of its valiant efforts to attain a developed nation from a developing status by providing state of the art health care available and affordable, to all levels of society. As a penalty in medical negligence, damages are met out to punish errant members of the medical fraternity by way of legal judgements in a court of law. In some circumstances members of the medical fraternity may also have their medical licenses suspended or revoked. Annually, medical negligence’s claim rates are inherently high and are expected to rise in tandem with patients’ awareness of their medical rights. Complication arises when the plaintiff in a medical negligence law suit face difficulties in trying to prove that the negligence really did occur. In obtaining access to medical records after a purported civil malpractice accusation, obstruction of justice is rife. They arise when blurred lines cross between obligation of doctor-patient confidentiality and the need to disclose patient’s medical records in order to securely obtain accurate sworn testimony of other medical practitioners. It is on the shoulders of the plaintiff, which in most medical malpractice law suits, rests on the patient (patients to the defendant doctors), to prove on a balance of probabilities that the breach of the duty of care did occur and from that breach, negligence had emerged, bringing about the claimed harm resulting in inherent damages suffered. High cost of litigation is also a common effect in medical malpractice law suits. This inevitably raises the insurance premium costs of all medical professionals, in general. These factors serve as impediments towards the plaintiff in obtaining justice. Hence, this paper will try to analyse the causes that has led to some of these problems. Also what will be the undesired effect caused by the difficulties in trying to prove that a medical malpractice has indeed occurred? The initial hypothesis to the matter is that it will cause negative effects to the livelihood of a patient’s life and seriously hider access to medical care. This paper will however only be focusing on one popular but ill-favouredeffect that is greatly deliberated on when medical negligence is discussed, which is defensive medicine. Defensive medicine is actually a reaction culminating from the fear of medical malpractice lawsuits by medical practitioners. Fear of facing or being taken action upon, has caused them to take necessary safe steps which is to practice defensive medicine to avoid such risk.