South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission said on March 18 it will issue a revised notice on the transfer of personal data in the health and medical sector, expanding the scope of data transmitters for data subjects.

The revision adds 337 general hospitals under Article 3-3 of the Medical Service Act to the scope of health and medical sector data transmitters, which had been set at 50 institutions: the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the National Health Insurance Service, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, and 47 tertiary general hospitals. This expands the total to 387.

The commission plans to apply the change in phases, considering the burden on general hospitals newly added as data transmitters, starting with those linked to the Health Information Highway system.

The revision will allow individuals to transfer their own health and medical personal data held by general hospitals to wherever they want and manage it freely. The commission said it expects that if people can comprehensively manage and analyse records from general hospitals, which it said have higher accessibility and utilisation than tertiary general hospitals, data subjects will be able to receive innovative services based on more information.

Commission Chair Song Kyung-hee (송경희) said the revision will allow the public to have their right to request transfers of personal data in the health and medical sector recognised more broadly. She said the commission will proceed without disruption with procedures to establish a notice setting data transmitters in the energy sector and the information subject to transfer requests so people can also experience the benefits of energy-sector MyData, such as in gas and electricity.