E-Health Laws And Regulations In India

Information and communication technology (ICT) has streamlined the way medical services and para medical services are provided world over. E-health and telemedicine are examples of use of ICT for medical purposes.

However, when technology is used for medical purposes, it gives rise to medico legal and techno legal issues. In United States, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act), etc are some of the laws that take care of medico legal and techno legal issues of e-health and telemedicine.

On the contrary, we have no dedicated e-health and telemedicine laws in India. Even essential attributes of these laws like privacy protection, data protection, data security, cyber security, confidentiality maintenance, etc are not governed by much needed dedicated laws.

However, numerous statues carry individual provisions that may be applicable to e-health and telemedicine activities in India. For instance, the e-governance and e-commerce related aspects of e-health and tele medicine may be governed by the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act 2000) that is the cyber law of India. All electronic contraventions and violations pertaining to e-health and tele medicine can be regulated b the IT Act 2000.

Similarly, privacy and data protection aspects in cyberspace pertaining to e-health are also governed by the IT Act 20000. Further, the Supreme Court of India has interpreted Article 21 of Indian Constitution as conferring a right to privacy upon all persons in India. Even in some cases the Supreme Court of India has held that patients have a right to privacy to protect their health related information except where non disclosure of such information is violating fundamental rights of others and is against public interest and public policy.

Even data security and cyber security aspects have been covered by the IT Act 2000 to some extent. The real problem is that these provisions that protect privacy, data protection, data security, etc are piecemeal efforts and they are not serving the purposes as required.

We need to have dedicated e-health laws and regulations in India that are presently missing. The sooner these e-health laws and regulations are formulated in India the better it would be for the larger interest of medical community and patients in India.

Google And Facebook To Remove Offending Contents Within 15 Days

Companies like Google, Facebook, etc are facing civil and criminal trials in India. In fact, representative of these companies have been asked to personally appear before a criminal court on 13th March 2012. Today a civil court has given 15 more days to companies like Google, Facebook, etc remove objectionable contents form their websites.

The entire issue revolves around Internet intermediaries’ liability in India. Companies like Google, Facebook, etc are Internet intermediaries as per the provisions of Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act 2000). The IT Act 2000 is the cyber law of India that covers dealings of these companies in cyberspace. If these companies fails to ensure cyber law due diligence in India, they are liable to be prosecuted in India.

Cyber due diligence for companies in India has been ignored for long. However, companies and individuals are now facing legal challenges for ignoring the same. There are certain simple procedures that can be adopted to ensure compliance with Indian laws.

For instance, foreign companies and websites must appoint nodal officers to comply with Indian laws. Similarly, these companies and websites must also formulate an India specific legal strategy to tackle cyber law and intellectual property violation issues more properly.

Perry4Law and Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) believe that these companies must ensure compliance with Indian laws in true letter and spirit. The Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 of India must be specially taken care of by all Internet intermediaries of India.

Companies like Twitter and Google have already taken initiatives to comply with Indian laws. Twitter has put in place a country specific mechanism to remove offending tweets. Google has also started redirecting Indian bloggers to ***.blogspot.in domains instead of ***.blogspot.com domain. This method would allow Google to remove offending contents pertaining to ***.blogspot.in alone once a valid legal request is made from Indian government or individuals residing in India.

Presently, civil and criminal cases are pending against companies like Google, Facebook, etc before various courts in New Delhi. Before the Delhi High Court, the respondent/complainant of the criminal complaint has placed it final arguments on 02-02-2012 and the petitioner companies would put its final arguments on 14-02-2012.

The civil court of New Delhi would analyse the compliance report of Google, Facebook, etc on 01-03-2012. The 22 firms involved in the case have to submit in writing that they have deleted the content before the next hearing. The criminal trial’s hearing is scheduled on 13th March 2012 where representatives of foreign companies have to be personally present. It seems foreign companies would have a busy month ahead.