Regulations needed to safeguard patient privacy, personal data: CCI

It said online pharmacies should adopt self-regulatory measures in the areas of collection, use, sharing of data and privacy

To safeguard patient privacy and protecting sensitive personal medical data, necessary regulations need to be enforced until the country legislates its data protection law, the Competition Commission of India said in a study released on Thursday.

It said that online pharmacies should adopt self-regulatory measures in the areas of collection, use, sharing of data and privacy.

"The antitrust law in India is wide enough to enable the assessment of any competition harm that may be caused by disprop-ortionate collection/use of data by digital entities with market power. The online pharmacies should adopt self-regulatory measures in the areas of collection, use, sharing of data and privacy.

"However, for safeguarding patient privacy and prote-cting sensitive personal medical data, necessary regulations need to be enforced until the country legislates its data protection law," CCI said in a market study on the pharmaceutical sector in India.