Table 1.

Impacts of neoliberal ideas on human rights, dignity, privacy, and autonomy in digital health.

Idea or goal	Meaning in digital health	Impact on
Digitalization of all information	A person’s life, emotions, and health behaviors are digitalized.	Privacy, human rights, and dignity
Privatization and monetization of health data	Health data are available for all and sold for money. The person has no possibility of knowing how health data are used and by whom. Health data are shared with private artificial intelligence developers, and they become part of the big data training bases.	Privacy, dignity, and autonomy
Commodification and privatization of public health services	Weakens the role of public services.	Privacy, human rights, and autonomy
Self-regulation, deregulation, and minimization of the state’s role	Protective restrictions for health data misuse and quality norms are weakened. The power of private organizations has increased.	Autonomy and privacy
Transferring responsibility to a person	Makes the person or patient a consumer. A person or patient has the responsibility of care, personal health, and for self-monitoring.	Autonomy and privacy
Private ownership of personal health data and digital products derived from it	Private organizations own health data, personal profiles, and digital health twins derived from them; enables tailored manipulation of a person’s health behaviors.	Human rights, dignity, and privacy; autonomy and privacy
Minimizing private service providers’ responsibility	Private organizations lack the responsibility for the negative consequences of the use of health data.	Human rights and privacy
Digital services substitute human contact	Caring data, profiles, forecasts, and digital patient twin.	Human rights and dignity