In what may be the first sector specific law on privacy, the health ministry has roped in the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, to draft a law guaranteeing right to privacy and confidentiality of medical information. The law — tentatively called the Healthcare Data Privacy and Security Act — will devise a comprehensive legal framework for protection of individual health data and its standardisation, and identify the “ownership” of that data through the establishment of a national e-health authority and health information exchanges.
