From a commentary by David Pannick, QC:
Last December the European Court of Human Rights decided in S and Marper v The United Kingdom that the retention by the State of DNA profiles is a breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. That is because information about people arrested for, or charged with, an offence but not subsequently convicted, is kept on the national DNA database for an unlimited period of time. The Government has accepted the judgment of the European court and announced that it will change the law to ensure compliance. But its proposed method of doing so is unsatisfactory and needs reconsideration.
The Government published a consultation paper on May 7 suggesting that the DNA profiles of people charged but not convicted should in future be kept for six or twelve years, depending on the seriousness of the alleged offence. The consultation period runs until August 7. The Government has rightly emphasised that this is a context, like so many others under the convention, where it is necessary to strike a balance between the rights of the individual and the protection of the public. The right to privacy may make it more difficult to detect dangerous criminals. There will inevitably be disagreements about where the balance lies, having regard to the point made by the House of Lords Constitution Committee that DNA profiles provide the State with large amounts of personal information about citizens that could, in the future, be used for malign purposes.
Read more in The Times Online.
Wezi Tjaronda reports:
The Legal Assistance Centre is taking a medical doctor and a lodge owner to court for allegedly testing 22 workers of the hotel for HIV without their consent in what could be the largest and maybe the first case in Namibia concerning non-consensual HIV testing.
The 22 workers want to hold Dr Gerhard Scholtz and the Oshakati Country Lodge liable for unlawful testing without their informed consent, for breach of their right to privacy by the doctor and false representation of testing for hygiene purposes when actually the test was for HIV. The lodge has since four months ago changed ownership and is now managed by Protea Hotels.
Read more in New Era.
From the ACLU:
The Ohio Supreme Court today moved to protect the privacy of minors’ medical records when the minor is not a party in a lawsuit. The case involves a lawsuit against an Ohio Planned Parenthood and attempts by a teenager’s parents to obtain the medical records not only of their own daughter but of all teenagers seen at that clinic over a ten year period.
“We are pleased that the court blocked the disclosure of the private medical records of teenage patients who are not directly part of a given lawsuit,” said Louise Melling, Director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project. “Adults and teenagers alike need to know when they seek medical care that their private records will not be dragged into someone else’s legal dispute. Confidentiality is at the core of the doctor-patient relationship and must be fiercely protected.”
The court also recognized that given the wealth of detail contained in patient medical records, redaction cannot reliably protect a patient’s privacy.
In June 2008, the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case asking the court to protect the privacy of minors’ medical records, arguing that the confidentiality of medical records is essential to the doctor-patient relationship, minors’ access to reproductive health care and the right to privacy. The brief was filed on behalf of the Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics; Ohio Academy of Family Physicians; Society for Adolescent Medicine; National Association of Social Workers; National Center for Youth Law; Center for Adolescent Health & the Law; Ohio NOW Education and Legal Fund; Ohio Domestic Violence Network; ACTION OHIO Coalition for Battered Women; Break the Cycle; and Women Empowered Against Violence, Inc.; the ACLU filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Ohio Supreme Court.
Today’s decision is Roe v. Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio Region No 2009-Ohio-2973.
Over in the UK, there are are similar issues about allowing people to opt-out of an electronic system. I’m almost surprised that this is the first lawsuit I’ve seen here.
The Stimulus Act signed into law by President Obama jeopardizes the privacy rights of the 65 percent of Americans who aren’t on Medicaid or Medicare by requiring health-care providers to create an electronic health record of every person in the United States, a class action claims in Federal Court.
Because Title XIII of the Stimulus Act aims to have everyone’s medical histories in the system by 2014, their personal health information would be a “mouse click away from being accessible to an intruder,” according to lead plaintiff Beatrice M. Heghmann, a health-care professional who has never been covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
Heghmann sued Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann Deparle and Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Charlene Frizzera.
Read more in Courthouse News.
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