Legal Regulation of Cross-border Flow of Health Data in Australia and Its Implications for China

Abstract

With the development of cross-border telemedicine, international cooperation in clinical trials of drugs and vaccines, cross-border academic discussions and clinical research, cross-border flow of health and medical data has become an irreversible trend. Rules for cross-border flow of health data require doing a balance among the objectives and policies of maintaining national health security, protecting citizens' privacy, and promoting the development of health industry. This paper uses literature research, comparative analysis and other methods to study the legislative regulation and regulatory mechanism of cross-border health data in Australia. The study's findings reveal that Australia prioritizes health data security, enforcing stringent oversight on the cross-border movement of personally identifiable health data through dedicated agencies and comprehensive legislation. China should build a scientific, complete and strict legal and policy system for health data protection and cross-border flow, and organically combine and implement laws and regulations with policy guidelines; improve the terms of standard contract for health data exit and play the function of the standard contract for regulation; actively use the existing hierarchical classification of health data to build a flexible and diverse health data exit regulation model; and strengthen exchanges and cooperation with countries along the "Belt and Road", especially ASEAN member countries, in the field of cross-border health data flow.

Keywords

• data management|health data|cross-border flow|hierarchical classification|data security|risk control