EU DPAs Issue Green and Red Lights for Processing Health Data During the COVID-19 Epidemic

As Europe is grappling with an exponential increase in COVID-19 cases, some European Data Protection Authorities issued public interest guidance on the limits of collecting, sharing and using personal data relating to health in these exceptional circumstances.

Particular areas of concern are related to the breadth of measures that employers can legally take to monitor the health of their employees, as well as the collection of health data by government agencies. Overall, regulators highlight that data protection law is by no means a barrier to public health, but advise organizations against “systematic and generalized” monitoring and collection of data related to health of their employees outside official requests and measures of public health authorities.

Source: EU DPAs Issue Green and Red Lights for Processing Health Data During the COVID-19 Epidemic