1. Willy TADJUDJE (PhD Law and social and solidarity economy)
Digitization of health services: Focus on the obligation to protect personal data in Cameroon
Willy TADJUDJE (PhD Law and social and solidarity economy)
Senior researcher, CRIDES, Catholic University, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Introduction
Methods
Results
Conclusions
Nowadays, a resource that gradually assumes importance in our society are personal data. The health services sector is not spared, especially in Africa.
Ethically, professionals must treat personal data with confidentiality. In Cameroon, for instance, the weakness of the legal framework can lead to a violation of this confidentiality, which puts the problem of the protection of personal data at the end of the day.
Despite the government's efforts to regulate the protection of personal data and the private life of Cameroonian citizens, many shortcomings remain to be filled in order to avoid serious abuses.
The aim of this research is to propose avenues of reflection for a better protection of personal data within the framework of the health services.
To achieve our goal, we used a combination of analytical and exegetical methods.
The second made it possible to make an inventory of legislative and regulatory provisions on data protection, while the first one allowed analyzing them under the prism of current reality.
Personal data are gradually becoming economic resources that companies are collecting and selling. Pharmaceutical and food industries as well as large laboratories may be interested in those data.
Without a legislative effort, the privacy of many Africans can thus be violated in a commercial interest.
Currently, there is a lack of specific legislation on the protection of personal data. It is time to consolidate all the provisions relating to personal data, in order to have a unique and complete one, with a focus on the health sector.
Serious reforms are urgently needed to ensure that Cameroon enters the digital age, protects its citizens and builds confidence in its international partners.
In Cameroon, there are many legal texts dedicated to the protection of personal data. However, they are scattered and do not allow uneducated citizens to become aware of the problem of data protection in order to better control the use and dissemination of such personal data.
However, the law (namely Law No. 2010/012 of 21 December 2010 on Cyber Security and Cybercrime in Cameroon) charge those who are in charge of the processing of personal data only with a minimum obligation of protection. Article 74 (3) states that "is punishable by imprisonment of one (1) to three (3) years and a fine of one million (1,000,000) to five (5) millions (5,000,000) FCFA or only one of these two penalties, anyone who proceeds or has made even negligent processing of personal data in violation of the formalities prior to their implementation".
Despite these legislative efforts, many shortcomings persist. For example, laws cover only data relating to the electronic communications sector and ignore other sectors of activity that nevertheless handle personal data on a daily basis, such as healthcare activities. One can also note the insufficient professionalization of people responsible for processing personal data in hospitals, pharmacies, medical laboratories, research projects, etc.
To avoid the proliferation of negative consequences, the Cameroonian legislator must make every effort to fill the existing legal gap but also and most importantly to provide as much clarification as possible on the already regulated sections.