2025 Presidential Annual Program Published: New Steps in Digital Transformation and Health Data

The 2025 Presidential Annual Program was published in the Official Gazette on 30 October 2024.

Several topics stand out in the plan. In this context, it is critical to re-emphasize the GDPR compliance targets, which were among the targets in previous years, in order to support the export of goods and services to global trade. Again, several measures included in to increase the use of digital public services with a user-oriented, integrated and participatory approach are also quite significant. To this end, emphasis is placed on strengthening cyber security in digital transformation in line with EU legislation and international standards, updating critical infrastructure sectors, establishing cyber security standards and preparing legislation in line with the EU Cyber Resilience Act. In particular, the implementation of the National Data Strategy and Action Plan and the establishment of a national open data portal through legislation on “open data” are also crucial.

In addition to these, another key issue that stands out is the target of establishing an infrastructure for the anonymization of health data for secondary use, especially for R&D and economic value creation.

This plan can be considered as the “initial steps” of the European Health Data Space (EHDS) in the EU. As a matter of fact, the EHDS aims for the primary and secondary use of health data within the EU. The relevant “space” is based on GDPR, the Data Governance Act, the Data Act and the NIS2 Directive. Although the transition is not yet complete, EU member states are expected to complete their participation in MyHealth@EU by 2025.

The EHDS was mainly created to increase digital access of individuals to digital health data, to create a single market for electronic health records and related systems, and to ensure the secure use of health data in research, innovation and policy-making processes.

The critical secondary use is similar to that in the plan. In this context, pursuant to the EDHS; if the necessary conditions are met,

▪️ For secondary use, health data will be accessible in closed and secure environments that comply with cybersecurity standards and only anonymized or pseudonymised data can be used.

▪️ Relevant health data can be used in areas such as research, innovation, public health and personalized medicine.

▪️ Access to these data will be provided through the “HealthData@EU” digital infrastructure with the participation of member states.

It is a matter of curiosity in the sector how the plan will be reflected in our legislation and what kind of a systematic will be established particularly for the secondary use of health data.

You can reach the full text of 2025 Presidential Annual Programme here (Only available in Turkish). You can find more detailed information on EHDS here.