Digital Public Health and Digital Health: twins or Neighbors? A data protection perspective

Abstract Enhancing digital public health (DiPH) terminology may foster a better understanding of the legal framework that grounds the use of personal health data within and outside public health policy and public health systems. Terminology accuracy is, therefore, relevant to understanding the data protection regulations that apply to DiPH interventions. The broader or narrower possibilities for using personal health data in digital health interventions depend on the legal basis that justifies (or not) the access to personal health data, whether inside public health policy or outside (e.g., in private health companies). In the context of digital health policy for DiPH, using personal health data is based on public law, analyzing proportionality, necessity, and the legitimacy of the interest. In contrast, for digital health interventions outside public health policy or in an individual clinical approach (like in digital health), the use of personal health data is based on informed consent. Brazilian data protection law (LGPD) and European GDPR provide the legal basis for public health systems’ use of health data in health policy. As a result, the DiPH approach highlights the relevance of using digital technologies and health data to strengthen public health systems within the platform economy and the context of surveillance capitalism. This presentation will shed light on the expansion of digital technologies and health data in health policy in the face of data science, highlighting the need to delve into the terminology of DiPH, understanding its boundaries and legal differences from its neighbors (not twins) outside health policy. Clarifying the DiPH approach, potentially leading to standards in terminology and embedding a data protection perspective, may maximize the accuracy of the legal justification for personal health data use in health policies. DiPH, therefore, may foster data protection, public health systems, and policies strengthening with health data.