IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aza/jdpp00/y2020v3i3p291-298.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does de-identification require consent under the GDPR and English common law?

Author

Listed:
  • El Emam, Khaled

    (CHEO Research Institute, Canada)

  • Hintze, Mike

    (Partner, Hintze Law PLLC, and Senior Fellow, Future of Privacy Forum, USA)

  • Boardman, Ruth

    (Partner, Bird & Bird, UK)

Abstract

Data de-identification has many benefits in the context of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). One of the recurring questions is whether consent is required to anonymise or de-identify data. In this paper, the authors make the case that no consent is required for anonymisation or other forms of de-identification under the GDPR, although additional conditions have to be met where special category data is anonymised. Further, under the English equitable duty of confidentiality, consent is generally not required if the de-identification is performed by the direct care team or on behalf of the direct care team; it is arguable that de-identification can also be performed by others outside of the direct care team, but less clear. The alternative would be special authorisation under section 251 of the National Health Service (NHS) Act.

Suggested Citation

  • El Emam, Khaled & Hintze, Mike & Boardman, Ruth, 2020. "Does de-identification require consent under the GDPR and English common law?," Journal of Data Protection & Privacy, Henry Stewart Publications, vol. 3(3), pages 291-298, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:aza:jdpp00:y:2020:v:3:i:3:p:291-298
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hstalks.com/article/5703/download/
    Download Restriction: Requires a paid subscription for full access.
    File URL: https://hstalks.com/article/5703/
    Download Restriction: Requires a paid subscription for full access.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aza:jdpp00:y:2020:v:3:i:3:p:291-298. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Henry Stewart Talks (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.