Frans Imbert-Vier, CEO of UBCOM, wishes to react to the words of the President of the Société Médicale de la Suisse Romande, Dr. Philippe Eggimann, who on the RTS news at 7:30 pm on April 1, 2022 declared following the theft of patient medical records: “The disclosure of this personal data is problematic, but it does not pose a great danger to those who are victims of it, since only, ultimately, people who are malicious towards them could take advantage of it.”

Frans Imbert-Vier: “Minimizing the impact on the consequences of health data theft inhibits all the awareness work of digital actors starting with the cantonal police services and the Confederation. Beyond that, a theft of health data can have vital consequences on a victim who can find himself harassed and under the pressure of a doxing campaign. If the medical secret is SECRET, it is not for nothing and a medical digital data does not derogate from this rule. As a digital professional, we do not comment on medical opinions, we strongly recommend that doctors do not make a judgment on this issue. The theft of health data represents a double penalty for everyone. It is the discrediting of the medical society in its inability to protect its patients’ information as required by law. And for patients, it is the risk of being exposed socially, culturally and criminally to mafia-like practices of coercion, blackmail, doxing or simply humiliation that can lead to suicidal postures in adolescents, and to social and professional isolation in adults (Pregnancy, HIV, abortion, long-term treatment…). So everyone’s data must be sacred and a medical professional or anyone else cannot minimize the impact just because you are not familiar with hackers”.

Frans Imbert-Vier reminds us that in 2021, 1 in 4 young Swiss people were victims of cyber harassment, more than half of which are linked to the promotion of pathologies such as disability, obesity, early puberty, etc. With these elements in mind, I invite the SMSR to adapt its statement by denouncing the seriousness of data theft, which remains a criminally condemnable crime and which must never be minimized for the essential interest of each patient, but also of each practitioner and for the general interest of the community”.

Finally, Frans Imbert-Vier points out to the RTS journalist who stated that the data was deleted from the Darknet: “The right to be forgotten does not exist on the internet. Reassuring the public that everything has been deleted is a crude argument and of course false, because it is impossible to say how many times the patient file will have been copied and shared.”