The commission approves the NLP for the right to erasure

The commission approves the NLP for the right to erasure

The right to erasure about cancer is of great importance in our society, since it implies that those people who have suffered and overcome cancer have the right not to be discriminated against in this regard, and to avoid that this fact could lead to their exclusion in any field of life for discrimination.

What is NLP and what is its importance?

Specifically, the PLN implies that people who have overcome cancer do not have to justify their medical history in certain aspects of their daily life, such as applying for insurance, a loan or credit, and, therefore, they are not see conditioned by the fact of having survived such a disease.

In this sense, from a report by the Josep Carreras Foundation, “Young people and leukemia”, in which 400 patients who have suffered from cancer participated, it can be seen that 47% encountered impediments in applying for a loan, 70% found it difficult to ask for death insurance, and 83% were discriminated against when purchasing life insurance.

In order to mitigate this type of situation, the PLN is approved, so that survivors do not see themselves discriminated against again when contracting financial and insurance products.

The background and context of the approval of NLP for the right to erasure

Although it is true that the Spanish legislator protects people with HIV from discrimination in access to jobs or financial services, through Law 4/2018 Law 4/2018, of June 11, by which amends the consolidated text of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users and other complementary laws, stating that “people with HIV/AIDS or other health conditions may not be discriminated against”, there was still no regulation that protected to cancer patients.

However, oncologists, patient associations and entities fighting cancer, among others, were heavily involved in demanding legislation to protect this right in Spain. Thus, the European Union urged the member countries in October 2022 to regulate it before 2025.

This measure was called for in the same way by political decision-makers and health professionals at the conference “European Beating Cancer Plan: Implementation in the Member States”, organized by the ECO Foundation for Excellence and Quality in Oncology, with the collaboration of Grupo Popular European Parliament in the European Parliament urged the President of the Government the need for cancer to be a priority during the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU, which begins on July 1.

For these reasons, in March 2023 the PLN was approved, urging the executive to develop “the necessary regulations to determine the application of the principles contained in Law 4/2018, of June 11, for other pathologies or groups of pathologies, such as cancer, which can be considered the same excluding effects in legal relationships”.

How companies and institutions act in the application of the right to erasure

The aforementioned proposal, approved with the support of various parties, refers to the European Plan to Fight Cancer, proposing measures such as the approval of a Directive against discrimination or the fair and equal application of the Directives on financial services, with the aim of avoid any discrimination against cancer patients or survivors.

Health is working so that the right to oncology erasure is included in the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users, so that protection is extended to cancer patients in the same way as it was done with HIV and AIDS.

In short, the purpose of this new legislative measure is for companies to draw up a code of conduct that guarantees the evolution of financial services treatments, and this so that cancer survivors can enjoy the right to erasure about cancer.

How does it work in the European Union?

In Europe, Spain, Iceland and Malta are, among others, the countries that do not have a specific regulation that shields access to financial products for the population that suffers or has suffered from cancer.

In fact, the first country to adopt this legal guarantee was France in 2016, and it was in 2019 when Belgium decided to follow the same path, although it was regulated that it would only be after ten years without a relapse of the patient. Luxembourg, for its part, adopted it in 2020 for patients under eighteen years of age without relapses after five years of complete remission, and the Netherlands adopted it in the same year promoting guarantees in oncological oblivion after 10 years of the relapse free remission.

For this reason, the European Union insists, through the European Plan to Fight Cancer, that, no later than the year 2025, all Member States guarantee the right to erasure about cancer to those European patients, ten years after the end of their treatment, and in any case, five years after the end of the treatment of those patients diagnosed with such disease before the age of eighteen.

In this way, it is included in point IV, stating that “insurers and banks should not take into account the medical history of people affected by cancer” requesting that “national legislation guarantee that cancer survivors are not discriminated against in comparison with other consumers.At Letslaw by RSM we are experts in Privacy & Data Protection, and we can advise you on everything you need.