Criminal Law Protection of Medical Data

The paper shows the areas of criminal law protection of medical data, both in the context of respect for medical confidentiality and reliability of documents. The first part presents the crime of disclosing professional secrecy, styled in Article 266 § 1 of the Criminal Code. In this respect the circle of entities which may be the perpetrators of this act and its subject matter is discussed in more detail. The next section presents criminal law protection of medical data as sensitive personal data. Article 107, paragraph 2 of the Act on the protection of personal data has been exegesisated, indicating the field of penalization of the act sanctioned in it. The last fragment is devoted to protecting the credibility of medical records. It presents the scope of responsibility for the so-called certification of the truth (Article 271 § 1 of the Penal Code). It points out the shortcomings of this provision resulting from the use of the normative clause “other person entitled to issue a document” in the description of the act. Establishing this circumstance may be difficult both for a medical officer and for the bodies appointed to prosecute crimes. These problems result from the multiplicity of legal acts, of different rank, which may create such authorization. Therefore, it has been postulated that medical-legal regulations concerning exceptions to medical confidentiality and competence to issue documents containing medical data should be tidied up and unified.