ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Digit. Health
Sec. Health Technology Implementation
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2025.1602101
This article is part of the Research TopicPrivacy Enhancing Technology: a Top 10 Emerging Technology to Revolutionize HealthcareView all 4 articles
Secondary use under the European Health Data Space: Setting the Scene and towards a research agenda on Privacy-Enhancing Technologies
Provisionally accepted
- 1TNO, Den Haag, Netherlands
- 2VU University, Amsterdam, Netherlands
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to address the fragmented 3 health data landscape across Europe by promoting ethical and responsible reuse of data, 4 seeking to balance the opportunities for data reuse with the risks it entails. However, the 5 techno-legal aspects of navigating this balance remain poorly understood. This study adopts 6 a qualitative and inductive approach, using semi-structured interviews to explore the risks, 7 challenges, and gaps in the implementation of privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) within 8 EHDS, particularly in the context of its governance structure and data permits. The findings 9 identify five distinct categories of concerns, based on fourteen risks, and highlight seven 10 governance and technological solutions, illustrating how these solutions address multiple, often 11 correlated risks. The interdependence between concerns and solutions emphasises the need 12 for a strategic and integrated approach to both governance and technology. This mapping 13 between the risks and solutions also highlights the central role of certain solutions, such as 14 public engagement and awareness, in addressing multiple risks. Furthermore, it introduces a 15 new dimension to the concerns by focusing on the structural imbalances in access to the health 16 data economy. We conclude by proposing a research agenda to advance the integration of PETs 17 into the EHDS framework, ensuring that data permits can effectively facilitate secure, ethical, 18 and innovative health data use.19
Keywords: European Health Data Space, Data Permit, Ethical secondary use, Digital Health, Privacy enhancing technologies
Received: 28 Mar 2025; Accepted: 26 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 van Drumpt, Chawla, Barbereau, Spagnuelo and van de Burgwal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sarah van Drumpt, TNO, Den Haag, Netherlands
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