Lecture Series: Health Data Privacy - Perspectives and Challenges
Interdisciplinary lecture series on different health data privacy topics including technical, regulatory, ethical and human aspects.
Course Description
This winter semester, the BIH AG Health Data Privacy offers an interdisciplinary lecture series examining the opportunities and privacy challenges associated with the collection, use and sharing of health data. Through perspectives from regulation, privacy enhancing technologies, data governance and human centred privacy, the series explores how the interests and expectations of data subjects can be reconciled with the legitimate needs of researchers, healthcare providers and other data users. The lectures highlight both the benefits enabled by health data use and the limitations, trade-offs and practical challenges of different approaches to protecting privacy.
Target audience
This series is open to PhD students at Charité as well as external PhD students and anyone else interested. As seating for in-person lectures is limited, Charité PhD students will be given priority should the venue reach capacity.
Participation & certification
You can choose to register for all or only for lectures on certain dates. If you’re registered to attend all lectures and participate in-course work you can earn 2,5 ECTS if you’re an internal PhD candidate or a participation certificate for everyone else. The coursework consists of submitted post-lecture memos and a final presentation, relating one of the lecture topics to one’s own research. Internal PhD students will be given priority to present at the end of the semester.
Lectures
Nov 9, 2026 | Maija Poikela "Privacy in Practice. Perceptions & Behaviors in Context"
Health data privacy is often approached as a matter of legal rights, technical safeguards, and individual control over personal information. But how do people actually perceive privacy, and what shapes their decisions to share sensitive health data? This lecture examines privacy from a human perspective, drawing on traditional privacy concepts, the GDPR, and insights from behavioral research. Selected findings from our own empirical studies will provide practical illustrations of the challenges surrounding health data privacy.
Nov 16, 2026 | Sophie Grimme "Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Privacy: Designing for Agency in Women's Digital Health" (online)
Privacy in digital health is often addressed using standardized mechanisms that fail to adequately reflect people's diverse needs and circumstances. Drawing on research from various stages of women's lives, this talk explores how women navigate privacy, control, and data sharing with digital health technologies. Using empirical findings and design examples, the talk discusses how we can move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches to more transparent, flexible, and human-centered ways of managing health data.
Online Presentation
Nov 23, 2026 | Hammam Abu Attieh "Pseudonymization in Medical Research: Theory and Practice"
The use of sensitive patient data is essential for medical research but also raises privacy and data protection challenges. Pseudonymization is an important technique for ensuring the secure and legally compliant use of medical data in research. This talk provides an overview of the relevant legal requirements, practical approaches, and challenges of pseudonymization in medical research.
Nov 30, 2026 | Sarah Gaballah
Dec 7, 2026 | Jens Geißler (online)
Dec 14, 2026 | tba
Jan 11, 2027 | Philipp Kellmeyer (online)
Jan 18, 2027 | Ala Eddine Laouir
Jan 25, 2027 | Roland Roller
Feb 1, 2027 | William Seymor (online)
Key Figures
Dates and time
Lectures every Monday 9.11.2026 - 01.02.2027 at 10:15-11:45 (no lectures on 21.12.2026, 28.12.2026 and 04.01.2027). Student presentations on 08.02.2027 and 15.02.2027.
Language
English
ECTS
2,5
Location
Online or Am Zirkus, Bertolt-Brecht-Platz 3, 10117 Berlin. You will receive further details (room / online meeting link) a few days before sessions.
Registration
Please register here for all sessions that you would like to attend.
