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Learn about your health record rights
Who can see your health record, and how much say do you have? Four short stories, each with a quiz, and your country's page help you find out. In the US, your state's page adds more. You do not need an AI assistant.
For students: explore the stories, no AI needed
If you are under 13, explore with your parents or teachers. Please don't fill in any forms or type anything about yourself.
You can learn how health records work without an AI assistant. This site has four short illustrated stories, each with a quiz at the end. It also has a page for each of the 198 countries and territories we score, and a page for every US state.
Pick a person below. Each one asks a question, and the story answers it.
Keep your health details private
Never type your own health details, or a family member's, into an AI assistant. Do not type them into this site either. That means names, illnesses, medicines, injuries and test results. The questions in this guide are about laws, not about you.
Most AI assistants have a minimum age, and some need a parent's permission. Ask your parents or teachers before you use any AI assistant.
The Ask the index box on our home page sends what you type to an AI. If you are under 13, use it only with a parent or teacher, and never type anything about yourself.
Sam:
After one week of care, who has a piece of my health record?
Sam lives in the United States. She gets sick at work and goes to urgent care. By the end of the week, her record is spread across many places.
The Carters:
Can my parents see my health record?
Beth Carter looks after four health records: her own, her teenage daughter's, her mother's and her husband's. The rules change for each person. Start with her daughter's part of the story.
Aino:
Can a person decide who sees their health record?
Aino lives in Finland. Several countries lead the index together. Finland is one of them, and their scores are so close that we name them together. She can see most of her record online and choose who else may see it. But there are things she still cannot decide.
Marcus:
If I move to another country, does my health record come with me?
Marcus is a basketball player whose career takes him from country to country. See which parts of his record follow him, and which parts he has to carry himself.
More ways to explore
- Find your country's page. Start from the list of countries on our home page and click your country's name. Its page shows its score out of 100 and why, with the sources.
- If you live in the US, find your state's page next. Each state page shows what that state's laws add to HIPAA, the US federal health privacy law. Where a law was found, the answer quotes it and links to it. Some rows say "No law found" or "Not checked."
- Compare countries. Each country's page puts its eight rights next to nearby countries, with every score out of 100. Treat two scores less than 5 points apart as the same.
- In the US, compare states. Put two or three states side by side. Each row says whether the answers are the same or different. There is no winner.
- Try your own route. Pick the countries on a trip or a move, and see which parts of a record could follow.
Questions to think about as you read
- Who holds a piece of the record in this story?
- What can the person decide, and what is decided for them?
- Where does the story get its facts? Look for the sources at the bottom of each step.
Before you trust an answer
AI assistants can make mistakes, even when they read from our data. Each answer from the index carries a link to the page on this site that shows the same thing. Country scores carry their sources, and US state answers carry the laws they cite. Check them before you quote a score, a law or a date.
Scores are out of 100. Treat two scores less than 5 points apart as the same. The countries in the lead group are always named together. Any of them could rank first, so we never call one of them first.
This is a research tool, not legal advice. It records what laws and official pages said on the dates we read them, and it does not rate any hospital, doctor or company.
We check our data, which makes errors less likely but does not rule them out. We cannot check what an assistant writes from it. If you find one, tell us. Please leave out anyone's medical details.
Built by SuperTruth, which checks whether a record can be trusted before an AI acts on it. About SuperTruth · How we used AI
Health Record Rights Index, by SuperTruth. Not legal or medical advice. Our data and our own words are CC BY 4.0, credit SuperTruth, Inc., Health Record Rights Index; quoted law and source titles stay with their owners. This page last changed on .