[Column] The Era of the Three Data Laws... The National Health Insurance Service Moving Backwards

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] Insurance companies that tried to actively utilize public medical data in line with the era of the 'Data 3 Laws' have become hesitant. This is because the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) Data Provision Review Committee recently rejected all requests for public medical data from five insurance companies.

Just two months ago, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) allowed insurance companies to access information, stating that "in accordance with the purpose of the law, such as revitalizing the data economy, public data applications and provisions cannot be refused without special reasons." This contradictory conclusion has left the situation in limbo.

Examining the NHIS review process, it concluded that the data could not be provided because the requests did not comply with scientific research standards and violated the principle of minimizing data provision. The review committee added a caveat that if insurance companies use values derived independently from the data for product development without objective verification, they might interpret the data arbitrarily, and therefore, scientific verification procedures such as submitting research results to academic journals must be conducted.

For example, if cardiovascular disease incidence rates are obtained using health screening data to develop cardiovascular-related insurance products, the results must be publicly disclosed for verification. Simply put, this means revealing trade secrets, which is a claim disconnected from the reality of the insurance industry. On the other hand, HIRA broadly interpreted "scientific research" to include industrial research purposes such as the development of new technologies, products, and services.

Insurance companies already undergo verification processes for insurance products. When an insurance company develops a new product, it cannot be sold immediately. It must go through a procedure to verify insurance rates at the Korea Insurance Development Institute and then report sales to and obtain approval from the Financial Supervisory Service. It is unclear why these procedures were considered unscientific.

Although there were concerns that research results might be arbitrarily interpreted, insurance companies, which must sell their products and be chosen by consumers, have little room to offer flawed products.

The review committee also rejected data provision based on the principle of minimizing data provision. Since insurance companies have already obtained disease incidence and prevalence rates through information disclosure requests, providing pseudonymized data for research purposes was deemed inappropriate. This is a reversed argument that denies information provision due to the use of information disclosure requests as a workaround amid difficulties in utilizing medical data.

Even at this moment, overseas, product and service development using medical data is in full swing. The NHIS decision, which goes against the Data 3 Laws encouraging the use and provision of pseudonymized information, is all the more regrettable.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.