Legal Research

Genetic Privacy

By jlutz99

In 2003 Iceland's Supreme Court ruled in a controversial case that had to do with the development of a genealogical database of the Icelandic population, a genetic database of DNA sequence and other information produced from blood samples and most importantly the development of a database containing the medical records of every Icelander living or dead.  The Health Database Ace of 1998 was challenged in court by someone who did not want her father's medical records in the database.   The Court ruled that she could not opt out of the database but could prevent the transfer of records because it would be possible to infer information about her from her father's hereditary characteristics. Read the Opinion:  Iceland Supreme Court  Decision
Also a Google search will produce many hits on this topic.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Full post as published by FSU College of Law Library Blog on October 21, 2005 (boomark / email).