On August 26, a day when recorded over 67,000 new cases of Covid-19, the Centre introduced a draft policy that aims to make sweeping change...
On August 26, a day when recorded over 67,000 new cases of Covid-19, the Centre introduced a draft policy that aims to make sweeping changes to the country’s health ecosystem. The draft Health Data Management Policy of the National Digital Health Mission was released to the public for comments and feedback. The time given to comment on complex data storing infrastructure with far-reaching implications for individual privacy: one week.
“One week is ridiculous,” said T Sundaraman, former director of the National Health Systems Resource Centre, an advisory body to the Union health ministry. Usually, the time given to seek responses from the public is one month to three months, he said.
First, a look at what is at stake. The National Digital Health Mission, formally announced by the prime minister on Independence Day but in the works for a while, seeks to create a digital health ID for citizens. Potentially linked to Aadhaar, the 12-digit unique identification number linked to a person’s biometric details, the ID will be key to accessing a digital database containing medical and personal information.
The draft policy floated this week outlines how this data would be collected, processed, stored and shared. It covers “personal and sensitive personal data”.
Data points classed as “sensitive personal...
