Seminar with Katharina Ó Cathaoir: Beyond consent and towards fundamental rights impact assessments

Consent is a central means of protecting patients and research subjects from harm. In data-driven healthcare, new challenges emerge: patients cannot meaningfully agree to the processing of their data in complex processing chains, least of all where cloud services store and re-use their data. At the same time, ignoring consent is problematic and risks a paternalistic view of patients.

This talk argues that fundamental rights impact assessments (FRIAs) are a necessary safeguard when the state launches new health technologies for disease prevention, even when not explicitly required by the AI Act. However, this process must be taken seriously and entail a genuine mapping, consideration of and mitigation of risks to citizens’ rights.

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