The Delhi government's plan for a digital Health Management System could soon map citizens' families, collect their facial data, and the geo-coordinates of their houses. Want to refuse enrollment? You would be flagged to the National Capital Territory's Department of Health and Family Welfare (DoHFW) or the Department of Health Services (DHS). These details are a part of the Delhi government's tender for an agency to create and issue health cards under the system. MediaNama had earlier reported that the system involves Voter-ID linked health cards for residents, Unique Health IDs, digital health records, a health information system, etc. While state governments can process sensitive health data, there is a need to have safeguards in place. The Delhi government's plan to flag any refusals to enroll may violate the requirement for consensual data collection as laid down in the 2017 Right to Privacy judgement of the Supreme Court. What are the characteristics of the tender? The tender asked that the bidder not only build a Health Card Software Solution (HCSS) that will generate and manage such cards but also take care of its issuance. In brief, it lists the following requirements: The HCSS needs to be hosted on a Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology empanelled cloud service provider. The HCSS has to be available as an IOS and Android app and as a website. It should have a dashboard with information on the number of cards issued to the citizen of Delhi, resources, facilities, services, etc. It should provide an…
