Emergency Calls Are Not Medical Records, Danish Data Agency Rules (1)

Recordings of calls to a company responsible for emergency health services cannot be defined as medical records, Denmark’s data regulator said Wednesday.

In a new ruling, the Danish Data Protection Agency stated that recordings could be mandatory and deletion requests may be refused. However, it also leveled strong criticism at a company, Laegevagten, which is responsible for receiving emergency calls in four of the nation’s six regions. While officially a private company, Laegevagten works closely with state-funded health care providers.

The DPA expressed “serious criticism” of Laegevagten’s practice of routinely retaining recordings for 10 years, which corresponds to the ...