Recital 3

The COVID-19 crisis strongly cemented the work of the eHealth Network, a voluntary network of authorities responsible for digital health, as the main pillar for the development of contact-tracing and contact-warning applications for mobile devices and the technical aspects of the EU Digital COVID Certificates. It also highlighted the need for sharing electronic health data that are findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (the ‘FAIR principles’), and ensuring that electronic health data are as open as possible, while respecting the data minimisation principle as set out in Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council (5). Synergies between the EHDS, the European Open Science Cloud and the European Research Infrastructures should be ensured, and lessons should be learned from data-sharing solutions developed under the European COVID-19 Data Platform.