COVID-19 And Personal Data Protection

1. Can processing personal data for the purpose of protecting public health within the scope of the struggle and measures taken to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic and its risk be considered as an exception under the Personal Data Protection Law in Turkey? What are the legal reasons for data processing within this scope?

Under Article 28 of the Law on the Protection of Personal Data No. 6698 ("Law No. 6698"), cases that may be exempted from the application of the law are listed. However, among these cases, unfortunately, the processing of personal data for the purpose of protecting public health and preventing pandemic risks or protecting public from threats to health are not included. On the other hand, there is no similar legal basis for processing of personal data or sensitive personal data (such as health data). Since the exceptional rule for the processing of health data (without a need for a consent) is regulated in a very restricted scope under Article 6/3 of Law