National Health Insurance Database

Will Legislation Be Sufficient to Tighten Security for the National Health Insurance Database?

Brian Hioe
The Executive Yuan has approved draft legislation to manage the data from the National Health Insurance system. Such legislation follows on a 2022 ruling by the Constitutional Court that decided that the use of such data by academic and research institutions was permissible, but there was a requirement for an opt-out mechanism and an oversight mechanism. To provide that oversight mechanism, a consultative committee will be established...
EnglishMay 2025Politics5 min read

Use of Genetic Information for Research Project Prompts Privacy Concerns

Brian Hioe
Concerns have been raised regarding the use of genetic information for more than 600,000 patients for an Academia Sinica research project. Consequently, this led to criticisms from legislator Huang Kuo-shu in February that this could potentially be a violation of the Human Biobank Management Act. Namely, according to the Human Biobank Management Act, patients must consent to their data being used and be allowed to withdraw use of the data at any given time. Some patients may not have signed off consent on their data being used but had their information included in the database...
April 2023EnglishPolitics5 min read