mHealth apps and Right to Data Portability: Law and Reality

The subject of this study, as the title indicates, is the right to data portability (RDP) in the context of the mHealth apps i.e. applications on mobile devices used to monitor health, in the European Union. The main research question is whether the new right to data port-ability will strengthen or undermine the control over personal data of mHealth apps users, encountering challenges arising from interoperability between mHealth apps. The central question entails two sub-questions. The first one is what RDP is. The second one is if and to what extent the right to data portability is possible from technical point of view (interoperability) between mHealth apps, and if so, what are the privacy risks. For the purpose of this thesis, RDP will be discussed as an instrument that should give users greater control over their personal data to protect the fundamental human rights to data protection and privacy. This research contributes to the literature in the domain of mHealth apps and data protection. Pragmatically, this research may make a valuable contribution in clarifying existing and future legal gaps in implementation of the right to data portability in the mHealth sector.