Taiwan Association for Human Rights Secretary General Tsai Chi-hsun and several other stakeholders in 2012 sent a legal attest letter demanding that the National Health Insurance Administration shall not share National Health Insurance (NHI) data to any third parties for any other use other than NHI-related purposes.
On the matter, Legislator Lin Ching-yi, National Taiwan University Hospital Superintendent Wu Ming-shiang, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University School of Law Dean and Professor Chen Chih-hsiung and Chiou Hung-yi, Director of the National Health Research Institutes’s Institute of Population Health Sciences held a news conference on the matter on April 19.
Legislator Lin said that the NHI databank have been used to study and shape important government policies and that the ability to leverage the databank is not only vital to the health of the Taiwan people, but also profoundly affect the health care policy and the development of medical care. If the Constitutional Court rules against the use of NHI data, it will be a major setback to the development of health care in Taiwan.
Superintendent Wu said that the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation provides legal derogations on the use of personal data for the purposes of scientific research or historical research, provided that guidelines on data minimization and pseudonymization are followed. Further, Taiwan has been conducting research on NHI data under the guidance of the government and academia for many years without incident or malpractice. Superintendent Wu said that while compliance is important, room for innovations must be allowed to enable progress.
Director Chiou said that access to NHI data is highly regulated and protected by stringent information security measures. Amid the current trend towards precision medicine, efforts at improving and correcting the accuracy of clinical experience requires verification and against NHI databank. Director Chiou also emphasized that the immense scale of the NHI databank is a highly valuable asset that should be cherished.
[2022-4-19/CNA]
