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The right to be forgotten for Czech cancer survivors

1 min read
October 10, 2023

The Czech Republic agreed with insurance companies on legislation to provide the right to be forgotten for people cured of cancer. They would not be denied insurance or need to pay more for mortgages because they used to fight against cancer.

Woman surgeon
Illustration | © Artur Tumasjan

The Czech Ministry of Health announced that cured cancer patients will benefit from the “right to be forgotten” (RTBF), implying that they cannot be denied insurance or be charged extra because they had cancer after a few years have passed. After this period of time, “patients will be protected as if they never had the disease,” according to Minister of Health Vlastimil Válek.

The Ministry of Health, The Oncology Patients Committee and the Association of Czech Insurance Companies were able to agree on legislation that the latter will not “consider previous illnesses after seven years for most oncology diagnoses,” as per its executive director, Jan Matoušek. However, it is unclear what “most oncology diagnoses” encompass at this point.

Other European Union member states have adopted an RTBF policy for cancer survivors, such as France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Romania. They push the threshold of “forgetting” to 10 years at the most for insurance companies (the limit is five years in France).

Last month, the European Parliament adopted rules that protect cancer survivors applying for credit for which insurance is required, whereby they have the right to be forgotten after a period of time so their former illness does not affect the insurance rates.

Member states should pass a law by 2025 requiring that insurance policies are not based on the health data of consumers during a period that should not exceed 15 years, counting from the end of the medical treatment. It should be applied no later than three years after the European directive enters into force.

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Alexander Saraff Marcos

Alexander is a writer for Newsendip.
He is a dual citizen of the United States and Spain and lives between Spain and France. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a major in philosophy and a minor in French. He loves watching e-sport on his spare time.