healthdepartmentoverCovidinfo

Regulator guns for health department over Covid info

Cape Town – The National Department of Health (NDoH) says it will respond to issues raised by the Information Regulator regarding the collection and protection of personal information gathered during Covid-19 contact tracing.
The Regulator on Monday confirmed it had referred the NDoH to the Enforcement Committee over personal information collected as part of the management of the spread of the Coronavirus during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the regulator, the decision follows numerous unsuccessful requests for information to the NDoH.
Referral to the Enforcement Committee can culminate in issuing an enforcement notice which has the same effect as a court order.
The matter stems from contact tracing regulations which were issued in terms of the Disaster Management Act, from April 2020.
These regulations authorised the compilation of an electronic Covid-19 contact tracing database for the purpose of managing the spread of Covid-19.
The database was supposed to contain information such as the first name, surname, identity or passport number, residential address and Covid-19 test results of people who are known, or suspected to have come into contact with persons known or suspected to have contracted Covid-19.
The regulator explained that these regulations directed that the NDoH, as the custodian of the database, must, within six weeks of the lapse of the national state of disaster, destroy or de-identify the information in the database.

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