South Korea Holds Onto Patient Data From Prior Coronavirus, Worrying Privacy Groups
Privacy advocates warn the government has kept the information from 2015 MERS patients beyond a justified emergency period.
South Korea has acknowledged it is permanently keeping data on patients from a previous virus epidemic, worrying privacy advocates that the government is sidestepping legal safeguards protecting personal information.
The data is from the country's patients who were infected with the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, which in South outside the Middle East in 2015. That outbreak led the country to launch a robust contact-tracing program that health officials currently use to fight the new coronavirus.
