Greens and patient advocates have criticized Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU) for an extended use of treatment data for research purposes. They accused the minister of not taking data protection seriously enough. The Ministry of Health strictly rejected the allegations.
It concerns new regulations in a law for the digitization of the health service, which the Bundestag is to adopt on Thursday. They aim to use social data of the health insurance funds on a broader front and faster for research purposes. According to the draft, an existing "data processing center" will be further developed into a "research data center" with a "significantly expanded and more up-to-date data offer".
Specifically, the health insurances should transmit data of each insured, among other things to age, gender, place of residence and treatments to the Central Association of statutory health insurance, which forwards them. Provided are rules for data pseudonymization.
For the parliamentary group of the Greens, it is "highly questionable that Spahn piggyback virtually complete without public discussion of the statutory health insurance data for research," said the green health expert Maria Klein-Schmeink the editorial network Germany said. She also criticized the fact that regulations on deadlines for deletion and the possibility of contradictions should only follow in a regulation.
The board of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, Eugen Brysch, emphasized that no one doubts the necessity of collecting figures and facts for medicine and care in Germany. In particular, the Federal Statistical Office is responsible. This ensures that the collection of information complies with the highest data protection standards. "If the Federal Minister of Health wants to pave the way, it needs the consent of those affected, but the privacy of patients plays in Jens Spahn rather subordinate role," said Brysch the German Press Agency. Already the concept for the introduction of the electronic patient file is a "frightening example".
The Federal Ministry of Health rejected the allegations. "We always take privacy and security very seriously." Health data is the most sensitive data there is, "Minister spokesman Hanno Kautz said on Saturday. The described method already exists for many years. Billing data would already be made available for research in anonymous form today. "There has never been a privacy and data security problem - and the Greens have never said so," the spokesperson said.
