M.S. v. SWEDEN - 20837/92

Cet arrêt peut subir des retouches de forme avant la parution dans sa version définitive dans le Recueil des arrêts et décisions , 1997, édité par Carl Heymanns Verlag KG (Luxemburger Straße 449, D–50939 Cologne) qui se charge aussi de le diffuser, en collaboration, pour certains pays, avec les agents de vente dont la liste figure au verso.

The present judgment is subject to editorial revision before its reproduction in final form in Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1997. These reports are obtainable from the publisher Carl Heymanns Verlag KG (Luxemburger Straße 449, D–50939 Köln), who will also arrange for their distribution in association with the agents for certain countries as listed overleaf.

Sweden – communication, without the patient's consent, of personal and confidential medical data by one public authority to another and lack of possibility for patient, prior to the measure, to challenge it before a court (Secrecy Act 1980 and Industrial Injury Insurance Act 1976)

Under the Swedish system, the contested disclosure depended not only on fact that applicant had submitted a compensation claim to the Social Insurance Office but also on a number of factors beyond her control – it could not therefore be inferred from her request for compensation that she had waived in an unequivocal manner her right to respect for private life with regard to the medical records at the clinic – accordingly Article 8 § 1 applied.

Medical records in question contained highly personal and sensitive data about applicant – although they remained confidential, they had been disclosed to another public authority and therefore to a wider circle of public servants – collection and storage of information at clinic and its subsequent communication to Office had served different purposes – disclosure thus entailed an interference with applicant's right to respect for private life.