PD 06 - A Call to Action for Health Data Governance - World Health Summit 2020

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose immense challenges to public health and the economy, governments increasingly rely on digital technologies to manage the disease and to monitor and contain the spread of the virus. The pandemic is thus accelerating the trend towards digitalization that is already transforming health care and medicine in fundamental ways. The convergence of big data - from diverse data types and a broad range of sources - with immense advances in information technology and AI offers unprecedented opportunities for individual and public health. The comprehensive capturing and computational analysis of large amounts of health-relevant data allows for innovative applications in disease prevention, surveillance, diagnostics, treatment, but also for more efficient resource allocation, remote training or improved primary care, to name just a few possibilities.

Yet, as could be seen in the intense debates surrounding Covid-19 tracking apps in many countries, the fast-moving technological developments and the growing aspirations – of service providers, donors, tech companies, health authorities, patients and many others – to field these technologies, lead to mounting concerns over data protection, privacy, and ownership. These concerns are heightened as the majority of WHO Member States still lack robust national data governance and digital health frameworks to ensure that the new technologies deliver sustained health benefits while protecting human rights. Investigating how data collection, sharing and use for research, commercial and public health purposes can be aligned with data protection, privacy, and informational self-determination, the panel discusses possible contours of a global health data governance instrument.