SUKL collection of sensitive patient data illegal

2009-09-07

The collection of sensitive patient data by the State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) in the Czech Republic was illegal, the Czech newspapers reported in August, describing the results of an investigation carried out by the Personal Data Protection Office.
The SUKL started to collect patient data in January. Pharmacies were obliged to add to a specially created registry all data on ordinary prescriptions, including information on the patient’s birth certificate. The information collected allows the reader to deduce the illnesses from which individual patients suffer.
In the words of Martin Benes, the head of the SUKL, interviewed by akutalne.cz, the institution collected data to meet its legal obligation to “produce analyses of medicine consumption in the Czech Republic as a source for the optimisation of medical policy”. However, according to the Czech Doctors’ Chamber, the institution which initiated the investigation, the law does not permit the SUKL to collect the data. Furthermore, the data collection breached the law on personal data protection.
The SUKL is to appeal against the report’s findings and intends to re-launch the so-called patient accounts as soon as possible.