ArgentinaLey 26.529, patient rights: confidentiality and custody of health information
In force since .
A sensitive categories rule binding public and private bodies.
- Instrument type
- an act of a legislature
- Obligation class
- Access restriction, Security, Retention
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Treat a patient's clinical information and documentation with strict respect for their privacy and the confidentiality of their sensitive data whenever you obtain, classify, use, administer, hold or transmit it, without prejudice to Ley 25.326.
- Keep the clinical documentation confidential, and make everyone who takes part in preparing or handling it or has access to it do the same, unless a competent court orders otherwise or the patient authorizes disclosure.
- If you keep the clinical record in magnetic form, use restricted access with identification keys, non-rewritable storage media, field-modification control or another suitable technique to preserve its integrity, authenticity, unalterability, durability and recoverability.
- As a care establishment or a health professional with a private practice, hold the clinical record in custody as depositary and put in place the means and resources to prevent access to it by unauthorized persons, for at least ten years from the last entry recorded.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Ministerio de Salud de la Nación in the national jurisdiction, and the highest local health authority of each province and of the Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Article 13 requires integrity controls on an electronic clinical record, including field-modification control, but names no log, audit or reporting duty; article 18 sets a ten-year custody period for the record itself, which is the record of care rather than a log.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Article 2(c) of Ley 26.529 requires every medical-care activity that obtains, classifies, uses, administers, custodies or transmits a patient's clinical information and documentation to respect the patient's privacy and the confidentiality of their sensitive data, without prejudice to Ley 25.326.
Article 2(d) gives the patient the right that everyone who takes part in preparing or handling the clinical documentation, or has access to it, keeps it confidential unless a competent court orders otherwise or the patient authorizes disclosure.
Article 13 allows the clinical record to be kept in magnetic form only if the means used preserve its integrity, authenticity, unalterability, durability and recoverability, through restricted access with identification keys, non-rewritable storage media, field-modification control or another suitable technique.
Article 18 makes the clinical record inviolable and makes the care establishments and private-practice health professionals its custodians as depositaries, who must put in place the means to prevent access by unauthorized persons for at least ten years from the last entry recorded.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app handles health records or processes personal data.
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