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Global health equity won’t be achieved until everyone—no matter who they are, where they live or what their means are—can access the best possible healthcare providers and treatments.
Most people in regulated industries like data aggregation or healthcare are familiar with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of 2018, which is designed to protect individuals’ private information and give people control over their personal data. However, few people know that the origin of GDPR legislation comes from the German government trying to prevent the tracking of citizens, as they did during the 1930s and 1940s.
The history of Nazi Germany makes tracking and sharing health records very taboo in Europe—and for good reason. German authorities used medical records, in part, to identify and locate those individuals and families they were targeting for persecution. After the war, Europeans were determined to ensure data could never again be used for such nefarious purposes. Stringent data privacy laws such as GDPR are rooted in this cultural ethos.