Medical Blockchains and Privacy in Austria - Technical and Legal Aspects

Abstract

The utilization of blockchains in the medical domain has been discussed for quite some time, with multiple academic projects targeting various application domains in this field. Still, many countries feature underlying laws and regulations that make this utilization hard to impossible, especially when considering the sensitive nature of medical records. In this work we analyze the specific situation in Austria and analyse the two major regulations that need to be taken into account, the EU-wide GDPR and the Austria-specific ELGA, with respect to blockchain applications in the medical sector in Austria. Furthermore, we outline several additional key issues that need to be taken into consideration, as well as the problem of the most prominent solution, linking to external storage from the blockchain.