Public health organisations including the authorities face severe difficulties in aligning national GDPR implementing legislation across Member States in the context of cross-border cooperation. The general question is how these GDPR challenges in cross-border public health projects and research can be best tackled and what the legal framework is.
euPrevent is a Euregional network that focuses on promoting health. COVID-19 is a clear example of the cross-border nature of diseases and the importance of cross-border cooperation in health. The project ‘euPrevent COVID-19 and its impact on the EMR’ (euPrevent COVID) focussed on obtaining data to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the EMR. The first obstacle experienced was that ethical committees have difficulty approving studies or projects involving persons from different countries. Another obstacle was exchanging personal data among project partners.
