Platform Privacy Construction – A case study of privacy on public digital healthcare platform 1177

Abstract: Privacy is an essential concept in the field of healthcare. As healthcare is fast digitalizing and going through platformization, understanding how it is constructed has become important. Swedish digital healthcare platform 1177 is a unique case, that can be used to analyze how the different actors that are present in the platform environment like the platform owner, healthcare organizations, and patients take part in the construction of privacy in a platform environment and how for example national and international legislation affects on the societal norms of the platform. By using the context analysis method and operationalizing platform society – and contextual integrity theory to 1177, it was revealed that while there is a clear hierarchy between the actors, all of them participate in different ways into making sure that the data that flows within the platform is being processed securely and with privacy in mind. While the platforms are their own socio-technical environments, they are also affected by national and international legislative norms. Compliance with legislation like the GDPR and the Swedish national patient data law is important as non-compliance can cause issues for the platform. However, while the platform privacy construction would be strong, the development of data analysis methods and AI can pose a risk for the data transfer from the platform to other purposes, like for example in research.