By Steven Orpwood, Business Analyst and DPO

March 2020

 

In my last article I examined the use of online consultations by mental health clinicians in the NHS. It is clear that there can be privacy issues regarding the visibility of the clinicians contact details, but there is also the unseen element, namely the recording of sessions by patients, either using online software, or an external camera.

 

If the recording is of a session between the clinician and patient only, and that material is not shared, then there aren’t any significant data protection issues, although filming is not part of the (usually) unwritten contract between doctor and patient.  However, if the recording is of a group session, there are potentially greater privacy and data protection risks, since members of a group may be open and unguarded about their situation in a way that would not occur in most other settings.

 

How do we manage this situation and what mitigating actions do we put in place?  At the moment, there is no definitive answer, but it does highlight the data protection issues we all face now that we are working so differently during the current lockdown.

 

You might also be interested in reading some of the AiM team’s blogs here.

 

Find out about Aim’s data protection and GDPR services here and see how we can help.