Medical confidentiality with regard to the protection of genetic information

The paper analyzes the rules of Russian and foreign legislation on the observance of medical confidentiality and identifies the specific nature of genetic information in protected medical information. Purpose: to analyze the Russian legislation on medical confidentiality with regard to the protection of genomic information. Methods: the author uses general scientific methods of cognition: analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, system, historical, functional, juxtaposition and comparison. Such special scientific methods are used as formal-dogmatic, historical-legal, legal modeling, comparative-legal, legal interpretation. Results: the conclusions are substantiated on the need to separate genetic information within the legal regime of medical confidentiality by means of exceptions and (or) additional legal structures which, on the one hand, enhance security measures, on the other hand, differentiate between exceptional disclosures in order to protect the interests of the patient’s relatives or to meet the need for scientific research.