Nicosia General Hospital – Dismissed (Cyprus, 2020)

Dismissed
DPA Commissioner25 May 2020Cyprus
final
Dismissed

General GDPR enforcement action

This case relates to broader data protection obligations, not specifically to cookie or consent banner compliance. It is not included in cookie statistics or the Risk Calculator.

The Cypriot Data Protection Authority dismissed a complaint against Nicosia General Hospital. The patient claimed her medical report was mishandled and her health information leaked, but the authority found no evidence of wrongdoing. This case highlights the importance of providing evidence when alleging data mishandling.

What happened

Nicosia General Hospital was accused of mishandling a patient's medical report and leaking her health information.

Who was affected

The patient who was hospitalized and later requested her medical report.

What the authority found

The authority found no evidence of data mishandling or leaks by the hospital.

Why this matters

This decision underscores the need for complainants to provide evidence when claiming data mishandling. It also clarifies that hospitals are not required to prepare medical reports unless requested by the patient.

GDPR Articles Cited

Art. 15 GDPR
Art. 32(1)(b) GDPR
Art. 32(1)(d) GDPR
Art. 32(4) GDPR
Full Legal Summary
Detailed

According to the Hospital's policy on its discharges procedure, the patient receives only an attestation form and a digital copy of MRI scans. The complainant was hospitalised for several days back in 2016. In September 2019, she asked for her full medical report for which the hospital has asked her to pay administrative fees. Furthermore, some days after the discharge from the hospital, her employer fired her. She thought that the firing was on the grounds of the health incident, and the only possible source to her employer was the very same Hospital's employee. The central part of the decisions dealing the question of whether the Article 15 activates in advance any "ex-ante right" of the data-subject to access his or her personal data and/or information, even when these data have not been prepared, drafted, and/or assembled yet. With regard to the leak of the complainant's health information, the Cypriot Office of the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection has not been convinced of the substance of relevant complaints. It appears that a complainant for any allegation shall provide some evidence compatible with a minimum burden and standard of proof. Nevertheless, Cypriot DPA has not specified yet the minimum level of the required proof. Regarding the primary concern, Cypriot DPA started her reasoning with the fact that state health require command a health facility to prepare a medical report only upon request from the patient and only if (s)he pays the regulated fee. Hence, before the patient's request, the desired information and data did not exist at all. That means the right of access, as the GDPR describes, it entirely incompatible under such circumstances. The secondary allegation from the Complainant was her belief that the medical report has been lost due to negligence of the Hospital's employees. The Cypriot Commissioner for Personal Data Protection was satisfied with the security measures that the health facility has adopted, while had consider

Outcome

Dismissed

The complaint or investigation was dismissed.

Related Enforcement Actions (0)

No other enforcement actions found for Nicosia General Hospital in CY

This is the only recorded action for this entity in this jurisdiction.

Details

Decision Date

25 May 2020

Authority

DPA Commissioner

GDPRhub ID

gdprhub-2566

About this data

Data: GDPRhub (noyb.eu)
Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
AI-verified and classified

Cite as: Cookie Fines. Nicosia General Hospital - Cyprus (2020). Retrieved from cookiefines.eu

Report Inaccuracy

Last updated: