Private medical data pertaining to patients was released to other persons due to a technical malfunction, the government said Tuesday.

In a statement, the government said the Minister for Health and Active Ageing Jo Etienne Abela was informed that on 13 May 2024, the National Screening Centre was made aware that a number of clients had erroneously received data pertaining to other clients.

On the same day, Primary HealthCare proceeded to conduct an investigation into the matter, and it transpired that the service provider commissioned to print and mail the test results had suffered a technical malfunction in the printing equipment, the statement added.

As a result, a batch of these test results were erroneously printed on double-sided paper with the consequence that a number of clients received their results in addition to data pertaining to other clients on the other side of their result letter. 

The Ministry said it gave instructions to Primary HealthCare to immediately proceed and file a Data Protection Breach notification with the Information and Data Protection Commissioner for further investigation on its part. At the same time, a letter was also issued to each customer who was affected by this technical error in order to rectify the situation.