[Strictly personal? Medical confidentiality in times of data protection]

Medical confidentiality is a foundation under every treatment relationship. Medical confidentiality is not immutable and has undergone a number of developments in recent decades.

Reflection on the developments that medical confidentiality went through in the Netherlands and Belgium in recent decades and on the connection between medical confidentiality and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Exploration of differences and similarities in legislation and practice regarding medical confidentiality and the GDPR in the Netherlands and Belgium, and consideration of the consequences of the implementation of the GDPR.

Medical confidentiality went through a relativization, a privatization and a materialization. There are two views on the relationship between GDPR and medical confidentiality: that the GDPR can be an exception to medical confidentiality, and that medical confidentiality always ranks higher than the GDPR.

Medical confidentiality and the GDPR are substantially different. There is a risk that the focus on the GDPR, both at the societal level and within organizations, may diminish the focus on medical confidentiality.