The Court of Audit recently expressed its concern regarding the fear of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) among implementing organizations. Implementation of government tasks is regularly hampered because organizations such as the Tax and Customs Administration and the Education Inspectorate see the GDPR as an obstacle to data exchange. The citizen suffers from this. A major stumbling block is a lack of confidence in the quality of privacy technology.

That confidence was recently dented once more when a major data breach affected a large number of organisations. Such as The parole reported, the personal data of regarding 15,000 tenants of Stadgenoot may have been exposed. Bad, of course, but more damaging is the side effect: an even greater distrust of the public and the legislator when it comes to research that requires sensitive data.

Identifying patients

The reality is that more than ever there is a need for data exchange between organizations, including in the healthcare sector. In addition, people make their data from medical records available for data research on the basis of so-called data solidarity. The current practice is that patient data is stripped of characteristics that can directly identify the patient. Although this protects once morest direct recognition, it does not guarantee that sensitive information can be deduced from other characteristics.

The good news is that there is now privacy enhancing technologies that make it possible to perform analyzes on personal data. Data from various sources can be used, while sensitive data itself remains under lock and key. Name, patient number, age, gender and place of residence can be securely linked and analyzed without researchers seeing individual data.

High-end privacy technology

The healthcare sector is of course not the only domain where the problem of inadequate data exchange manifests itself. Numerous implementing bodies and local governments have data that can help other governments to serve citizens well and better fulfill social tasks. It is high time to make the most of this potential.

Organizations in the public and private sector would therefore do well not to become paralyzed by data leaks, but to invest in high-quality privacy technology. There is also a need for a much stronger legal foundation for the principled choice to combine and analyze data, using the latest technology. This means that the use of privacy technology must be explicitly mentioned in the law. The quality of that technology justifies such trust from the legislator.

Freya de Mink is Business Development & Healthcare Lead at Roseman Labs, Frank van Vonderen is Privacy, Data and Artificial Intelligence Consultant at Verdonck, Klooster & Associates

The city of Chelsea in the territory of Massachusetts, in the United States of America, is distributing financial aid to its inhabitants. This support responds to the Chelsea Eats plan and has amounts between $200.00 USD and $400.00 USD.

To take this measure, 738 families were selected and since March of this year 2023, the monetary resource is being delivered. The contribution is intended for residents to have sufficient financial capacity for the expenses of basic products and services in their homes.

A local government spokesperson reported that assistance through bank cards that are recharged once a month has been implemented. The amounts that are deposited vary depending on the number of members that make up a household.

The citizen who lives alone in a home, receives $200.00 USD and the houses inhabited by three relatives enter $300.00 USD. In dwellings with three people or more, a charge of $400.00 USD is assigned.

A requirement to meet

The authorities reported that the state contribution was established in the quarter from March to May 2023. To determine the households that would receive this benefit, their salaries were reviewed.

Those eligible had to have a salary 30% below the income of the residents of the residential area itself. This norm means that the annual income of money in a house where a citizen lives cannot exceed $29,450.00 USD.

Households inhabited by two people cannot have income greater than $33,650.00 USD in one year. Government aid is not expected to continue beyond the month of May of the current 2023. Those responsible for organizing this financial support recommend that those interested in knowing other details report to local government offices.