The centralised collection and storage of information about the health of individuals. Recent advances in GENETICS have raised concerns about the potential for abuse of all health databases, whether maintained for scientific research – which has long used them – or for government or community health planning, or by groups of professionals (or individuals) to help in the treatment of patients. The public is concerned about whether their rights to privacy and confidentiality are threatened by databases and whether information about them could be disclosed and misused, especially to commercial organisations such as insurance companies. In most countries, legislation governs the collection, transfer or release of identifiable information from databases.