privacy european-union medical personal-information
Privacy and ownership of my medical records
<p>Can I request my medical records (such as having had a flu, surgery, etc) to be taken out, to keep them myself instead of trusting an institution to respect my privacy according to any EU laws?</p>
<p>I have met 3 friends in a bar last month, doctors, they told me they just randomly look at peoples' records when they meet someone, when a friend asks, etc, and it's common practice here. Maybe they are not allowed to do so by law (I don't know) but nobody finds out about it and many do so. There isn't much you can do with that of course, but I still am not comfortable trusting some institution with thousands of workers who have access to my private information, when clearly nobody controls who and why accesses it.</p>
<p>My medical information is not needed unless I am ill, in which case I can take the responsibility to provide it or to deal with the popential medical consequences. So is there any law that would allow me to do that and wipe my records from the untrustworthy institutionalized machine?</p>

<h2>Short answer: You can not deny them having records</h2>
<p>Data Privay laws in the Eu allow any service provider to process data under a necessity standard. Medical professionals are required by law to keep records and review them as needed, which meets all the necessary standards. Because of that, you can not ask them not to keep records. Your medical information is needed not just when you are ill, but your doctor might need to check for if you need for example a fresh dose of Thetanus-vaccine or be aware of chronic illnesses, so he has to regularly familiarize themselves with their active patients - which is in part what the file is for.</p>
<p>You can however ask for a copy of your file to consult a 2nd opinion or change doctors. This does not make the file go away though, it still needs to be retained for 10 years (or more) since your last visit.</p>
<h2>What you didn't ask: They mare not share the contents</h2>
<p>Doctors may only share the contents of medical files on a very strict need to know basis. The staff at their clinic may need to know for billing and sending letters. But he may not provide the information to someone that does not need the information for a purpose of the clinic and is not part of it: if the concerned neighbor asks, the clinic may not even provide information that or if someone is a patient!</p>
