TA6 - Privacy & Data Access

Data protection regulations have to be taken into account on many levels of the infrastructure developed by NFDI4Health. Moreover, the health data managed by NFDI4Health belong to the so-called special categories of personal data, the processing of which is subject to particularly strict data protection requirements. But nevertheless, data protection law contains a variety of regulatory approaches of data processing for scientific research purposes, which are all aimed at a privileged treatment of such data processing. They include a relaxation of the principle of purpose limitation, legal exceptions from the general prohibition of data processing, the option of so-called broad consent as well as numerous exceptions with regard to the rights of the persons concerned.

Data protection and data security are overarching challenges for all consortia which process personal data and thus synergies can be exploited by close coordination with other consortia (e.g. the German Human Genome-Phenome Archive GHGA). Data protection and data security are also cross-sectional issues within NFDI4Health. A main focus of TA6 will therefore lie on ensuring that data protection concerns are adequately addressed on all levels of the consortium.