On June 23, 2022, the German Federal Office for Information Security (“Office”) published technical guidelines on security requirements for healthcare apps, including mobile apps, web apps, and background systems. Although the technical guidelines are aimed at healthcare app developers, they contain useful guidance for developers of any app that processes or stores sensitive

Kristof Van Quathem
Kristof Van Quathem advises clients on data protection, data security and cybercrime matters in various sectors, and in particular in the pharmaceutical and information technology sector. Kristof has been specializing in this area for over fifteen years and covers the entire spectrum of advising clients on government affairs strategies concerning the lawmaking, to compliance advice on the adopted laws regulations and guidelines, and the representation of clients in non-contentious and contentious matters before data protection authorities.
Procurement Tenders in the Health Sector: More Protection for Patient Data
On March 6, 2020, the Italian Data Protection Authority (“Garante”) reported on new measures designed to protect the health data of patients in the context of Government procurement efforts (calls for tender) to acquire medical equipment and devices. The new measures are the result of a collaboration between the Garante and Consip, a company wholly…
Germany Publishes Draft Regulation on the Reimbursement of Digital Health Applications
Germany recently enacted a law that enables state health insurance schemes to reimburse costs related to the use of digital health applications (“health apps”), but the law requires the Federal Ministry of Health to first develop the reimbursement process for such apps. Accordingly, on January 15, 2020, the German government published a draft regulation setting…
Reconciling Personalized Nutrition with the GDPR
As with anything personalized, be it advertising, medicines or training schedules, also personalized nutrition — using information on individual characteristics to develop targeted nutritional advice, products, or services — risks being affected by the feared GDPR. Kristof Van Quathem discusses the topic in Vitafoods’ Insights magazine of January 2019, available here.