In the internet era, when almost any information is accessible to nearly anyone, privacy becomes one of the most critical factors for internet users. Amongst the fundamental individual rights, the right to privacy is protected by the public government through privacy laws. Belize is not an exception; Belize’s privacy laws are listed in the Data Protection Act. This act underlines the basic principles of data protection and describes who can access and process that data and under what conditions.
Data protection implies the definition and clarification of specific essential points. In that definition, Belize’s Data Protection Act shares a lot in common with the European GDPR from 2018 and the United Kingdom’s Data Protection Act from 1998 (Bartlett, 2022). It is stated that this act controls “the collection, keeping, use, and dissemination of personal data” (Data Protection Act, 2021). Following that statement clarifies what data can be considered private, what actions concerning it are allowed, and, most importantly, who has the authority to perform such activities.
Although this authority at certain conditions belongs to the government or an organization in most cases, there are few exceptions that need to be discussed. In paragraph 10 of the Data Protection Act, that forbids personal data usage, part (l) excludes health care professionals. Later in paragraph 21, which explains the conditions of data transfer from a data subject to a data processor, sub-section (5), part (d) mentions “an obligation of professional secrecy” (Data Protection Act, 2021). This specific condition might explain the previously mentioned exclusion. In general, people tend to trust their data to professionals upon request because they know that a professional is not likely to misuse that information.
The level of trust in one’s professionalism builds upon many different factors, and reputation stands among the most principal. It is also important to mention that a professional earns his reputation by his actions and success in the chosen career. Moreover, he should match specific criteria or standards to be recognized as a professional in the first place. Following the example of a health care professional, it is possible to find the definition of those criteria. In Encyclopedia of pharmacy practice, it is possible to find eight principles of professionalism: altruism and caring, excellence, ethics, respect, communications, accountability, integrity, and justice (p. 205). Being so generalized and thus not bound to health care, these standards are often applied to a professional of any specialization.
In Belize’s Data Protection Act, specific points about personal privacy are explicitly defined. To summarize, it states what kind of information can be viewed as confidential, the types of processing that information, who has the authority to undertake actions to process it, and at what conditions they are allowed to do so. Along with the government and legal entities, the individuals restricted with the professional secrecy agreement are also mentioned in the Data Protection Act as those who have the right to use private data. So these individuals have to match specific criteria to be considered professionals, but they can request and use personal data as part of their job if they do match them. On the whole, personal data protection is a significant concern in modern society. Passing the Data Protection Act into law, Belize’s government attempted to ensure the safety of its people in this delicate matter.
References
Babar, Z. & Austin, Z. (Eds.). (2019). Encyclopedia of pharmacy practice and clinical pharmacy. Elsevier Science.
Bartlett, M. D. (2022). Belize’s proposed Data protection law adds unique spin to the familiar. Bartlett D. Morgan.