Restoring Trust into the NHS: Promoting Data Protection as an ‘Architecture of Custody’ for the Sharing of Data in Direct Care

International Journal of Law and Information Technology 2020 (forthcoming)

27 Pages Posted: 28 May 2020 Last revised: 26 Jun 2020

See all articles by Audrey Guinchard

Audrey Guinchard

University of Essex - School of Law

Date Written: February 5, 2020

Abstract

Aiming to provide better, more personalised care, by harnessing the power of digitalisation, the National Health Service (NHS) has employed a strategy of sharing its patients’ information with the private sector, raising questions as to whether it can be trusted as a custodian of its patients’ data. The development of the Streams application by DeepMind, a subsidiary of Google Health UK, illustrates the dichotomy between, on the one hand, the need to use innovative technologies to provide effective direct care and, on the other hand, the obligation to protect patients’ rights and interests in their health data.

This paper focuses on an under-explored aspect of the Streams debate: the NHS’s processing of health data in direct care. It argues that the data protection framework is best viewed as an architecture of custody, where all participants in the framework have a custodial role to play and should collaborate to ensure the balance between the free flow of data and the data subjects’ rights and interests.

This paper has been written in collaboration with Dr Subhajit Basu (University of Leeds, UK).

Suggested Citation

Guinchard, Audrey, Restoring Trust into the NHS: Promoting Data Protection as an ‘Architecture of Custody’ for the Sharing of Data in Direct Care (February 5, 2020). International Journal of Law and Information Technology 2020 (forthcoming), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3589551 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3589551

Audrey Guinchard (Contact Author)

University of Essex - School of Law ( email )

Colchester, Essex CO43SQ
United Kingdom

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