The Executive Yuan of Taiwan has approved a draft bill that would give individuals the option to opt out from having their National Health Insurance (NHI) records used for nonmedical purposes according to a report in The Taipei Times.
The Executive Yuan is the executive branch of the government of Taiwan and is headed by the prime minister of the country.
According to the Taipei Times report, after the approval by the Yuan, premier of Taiwan Cho Jung-Tai told media persons that the law would help uphold the right to privacy while ensuring that the government keeps up with the trends of AI and big data to establish an open government.
According to senior government officials, those seeking to exercise the right to opt out will have to submit an application to the NHIA, which will disclose what NHI records are being used.
There will, however, be exceptions in which the NHIA may deny the option to opt out. An example of the exception could be in cases where the use of data may be used in the government's efforts to prevent pandemic and responding to such situations.
The draft bill also allows previously approved opt-out requests to be ignored for reasons of national security or when there is an imminent danger to life or property or if the government receives an official request to provide a person's NHI records.
The approved draft bill is a follow-up of a judgement by the constitutional court of Taiwan on the constitutionality of the personal data usage of National Health Insurance research database. The judgment was released on 12 August 2022.
The judgement had stated that Article 6 of Personal Data Protection Act does not violate the people’s right to privacy and hence was constitutional.
The judgment, however, said the absence of an independent supervisory authority responsible for ensuring that Taiwan institutions and bodies comply with the data protection law, can be unconstitutional, putting personal data protection system on the borderline to failure. The court had said therefore laws and regulations must be amended to protect people’s information privacy guaranteed by Article 22 of the Constitution.
The judgment also stated it is unconstitutional that Articles 79 and 80 of National Health Insurance Law and other relevant laws lack clear provisions in terms of to store, to process, and external transmission of personal health insurance data held by the NHIA.