ABSTRACT
One of the main ethical problems in biomedical issues has been deciding who should have access to our genetic information and why. This chapter discusses the Maltese Data Protection Act and how it affects the transfer of personal information, including medical information, with particular regard to genetic databases. There are in fact divergent views among philosophers, legislators and ethicists on the essentialism of genetic information. The only law that has been promulgated in Malta that is strictly relevant to data protection is the Data Protection Act (DPA). The legal system in Malta is a hybrid; public law is generally common law derived, while the civil law is mainly the Anglo Saxon pattern, and interpretation of laws is mainly literal. Article 1.1 of the EC Directive states that the objective of the Directive is to protect fundamental rights and freedoms, in particular privacy, with regard to the processing of personal data.
