The extent to which the POPI act makes provision for patient privacy in mobile personal health record systems

Health care providers are increasingly making use of m-health systems for data collection and maintenance of patients' health records, e.g. Mobile Personal Health Record Systems (MPHS). The privacy issues raised when making use of MPHRS include how information is collected, stored, and who has access to the collected information. These privacy concerns have not been investigated in the South African context before making use of the POPI Act. The Conceptual Framework for M-health was used as the foundation for evaluating the privacy principles relevant to MPHRS. The analysis found that while most privacy principles are regulated in the POPI Act, it does not make reference to a specific privacy management programme for MPHRS or anonymity of presence. This is problematic as health care providers will not have any guidance as to how to comply with the various privacy implementation principles. The recommendation of the study is then to develop these privacy management programmes in order to ensure compliance and information privacy of patients making use of MPHRS.