보건의료에서 빅데이터 활용의 법과 정책

According to Article 17 of the Korean Constitution, the privacy of no citizen shall be infringed. There have beenconsiderable advances in the fields of computers and communications technology in the late 20th century. However,processing large amounts of personal information has caused many problems. In Korea, incidents of personalinformation leakage have been occurring frequently. To solve these problems, the Personal Information Protection Actwas enacted in 2011. The most significant feature of this Act is that it applies not only to public institutions, but also tocorporate bodies, organizations, and individuals who manage personal information. However, the Act does not allowthe management of personal information for public purposes such as public health. Recently, the European Parliamenthas adopted a legislative resolution on the proposed European Union General Protection Regulation. This regulationallows the management of personal information for public health, reflecting the opinions of European public healthexperts. According to Article 81 of the proposed regulation, processing of personal data concerning health is permittedfor the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, medical diagnosis, the provision of care or treatment, orthe management of health-care services. It is also permitted for reasons of public interest in the area of public health,such as protecting against serious cross-border threats to health or ensuring high standards of quality and safety formedicinal products or medical devices and reasons of public interest in areas such as social protection, in order to ensurethe quality and cost-effectiveness of the health insurance system and the provision of health services. The proposedregulation is an example of the balance of privacy and public interest in the management of personal information. Although the management of personal information is allowed in the public interest without the consent of the subjectof the information, all measures should be taken for privacy protection. It is time for Korea to take legislative steps forthe management of personal health information for public health under conditions of strict privacy protection measures.