Recital 6

More and more individuals living in the Union cross national borders to work, study, visit relatives, or for other reasons. To facilitate the exchange of health data, and in line with the need to empower citizens, they should be able to access their health data in an electronic format that can be recognised and accepted across the Union. Such personal electronic health data could include personal data related to the physical or mental health of a natural person, including related to the provision of healthcare services, and which reveal information about that natural person’s health status, personal data relating to the inherited or acquired genetic characteristics of a natural person which give unique information about the physiology or the health of that natural person and which result, in particular, from an analysis of a biological sample from the natural person in question, as well as data determinants of health, such as behaviour, environmental and physical influences, medical care, and social or educational factors. Electronic health data also include data that have been initially collected for research, statistical, health threat assessment, policymaking or regulatory purposes and it should be possible to make them available in accordance with the rules laid down in this Regulation. Electronic health data consist of all categories of those data, irrespective of whether such data are provided by the data subject or other natural or legal persons, such as health professionals, or are processed in relation to a natural person’s health or well-being and should also include inferred and derived data, such as diagnostics, tests and medical examinations, as well as data observed and recorded by automated means.