Criminal liability of nurses in the recording and protection of personal health data

Personal data; identity is any kind of information about a specific or identifiable real person. Personal health data is included in the category of specific qualified data and is any kind of health information belonging to a specific or identifiable natural person. Personal data is protected by international and national legal regulations. However, advances in information technology have led to the transfer of health data to digital media and the protection of health data has become difficult. Nursing is a profession with the ability to learn, record and share health data of patients. Health professionals must record and maintain their personal health data in a complete, accurate and regular manner. Personal health data; it protects the rights of healthcare workers as well as protecting the rights of patients. Keeping medical records is important for the healthy functioning of the service, invoicing the service, conducting scientific studies and creating legal evidence. Nurses are a healthcare professional in the healthcare class, who practice health care related to patient health and care. The nurse should perform medical, ethical, ethical and legal actions while exercising his / her initiatives, and should perform his / her initiatives within the limits of authority, responsibility and legal limits. Nurses; they have the obligation to protect the confidentiality of the information they have acquired in relation to their patients, to disclose them to third parties, to not to disclose them and to not to others. In the case of violation of the obligation, nurses may face criminal sanctions under the Turkish Penal Code. The subject of our study; it constitutes criminal responsibilities of nurses working in public hospitals for recording and protecting personel health data about their patients. In the first part of this study, national and international legislation were examined in order to record and protect personal health data. In the second part, the criminal responsibilities of nurses in the registration and protection of nursing profession and personal health data are examined. Our study is prepared by searching and evaluating international legislation, the Constitution of Turkey, Personal Data Protection Law, other legislation, doctrine and literature about the specific subject. Keywords: Personal Data, Personal Health Data, Recording and Protection of Personal Health Data, Nurse, Criminal Liability.