title: A model-driven privacy compliance decision support for medical data sharing in Europe.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Clinical practitioners and medical researchers often have to share health data with other colleagues across Europe. Privacy compliance in this context is very important but challenging. Automated privacy guidelines are a practical way of increasing users' awareness of privacy obligations and help eliminating unintentional breaches of privacy. In this paper we present an ontology-plus-rules based approach to privacy decision support for the sharing of patient data across European platforms.
  
  
  METHODS
  We use ontologies to model the required domain and context information about data sharing and privacy requirements. In addition, we use a set of Semantic Web Rule Language rules to reason about legal privacy requirements that are applicable to a specific context of data disclosure. We make the complete set invocable through the use of a semantic web application acting as an interactive privacy guideline system can then invoke the full model in order to provide decision support.
  
  
  RESULTS
  When asked, the system will generate privacy reports applicable to a specific case of data disclosure described by the user. Also reports showing guidelines per Member State may be obtained.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The advantage of this approach lies in the expressiveness and extensibility of the modelling and inference languages adopted and the ability they confer to reason with complex requirements interpreted from high level regulations. However, the system cannot at this stage fully simulate the role of an ethics committee or review board.
authors.affiliation: Bristol Institute of Technology, University of the West of England, Bristol BS16 1QY, United Kingdom. Hanene2.Rahmouni@uwe.ac.uk
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Boussi Rahmouni
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Solomonides
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Casassa Mont
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shiu
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rahmouni
mesh_terms: D016208:Databases, Factual; D003657:Decision Making; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005060:Europe; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000379:methods; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D015233:Models, Statistical; D018907:Privacy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012984:Software