Table 2.

Characteristics of the definitions of genetic testing in different legal fields (scope)

Legal Field
Main features	Labour and/or insurance law	Privacy and confidentiality/data protection and law on biobanks	Health care law	Forensics (criminal/civil) and family law	Complex laws
Specificities	Specific genetic mutations and susceptibilities, incl. exposure to work environment or increased future disease risk, stratification of risks and actuarial activity	Protection of patient and human rights, non-disclosure of genetic information without informed consent	Diagnosis, treatment, prevention, genetic counselling, quality assurance, population screening, clinical research or research applied to human disease	Civil and criminal identification, identify human bodies/remains, parenthood or kinship	Various and very general
Explicit exclusions	Potential danger to others or public health	Reporting results from research biobanks without prior consent/policy	Research without informed consent in diagnostic samples	Use of potentially diagnostic information	Various
Target group of genetic testing	Employees and candidates to employment or life/health insurance	Human volunteers, general population	Affected patients, persons at risk, population at large	Suspected or actual criminal offenders, convicts, missing persons, general population, disputed paternity	Health related
Example	USA: Executive Order to Prohibit Discrimination in Federal Employment Based on Genetic Information	Portugal: Personal Genetic Information and Health Information Law	Australia: Genetic Testing—Guidelines for Prioritizing Genetic Tests	Slovakia: Act on the Application of DNA for the Identification of Persons	CoE: “Oviedo Convention” and Additional Protocol Concerning Genetic Testing Related to Health