Abstract:
This study is concerned with:
Every employee of a private health insurance company is sworn to secrecy, according to § 203 I Nr. 6 StGB (penal code). The breach of secrecy, each disclosure of a secret to another person is liable to punishment under § 203 I Nr. 6 StGB. The professional secrecy exists also with regard to other employees of the same private health insurance company. Because of the necessary division of work in the company, the circulation of the secrets concerning the assured persons can not be avoided. In case of the strict interpretation of the physical element of the offence (§ 203 StGB), any case of disclosure of secrets among employees within the same company would be punishable.Because of this, one has to find criteria to modify the physical element of offence (§ 203 StGB) in case of internal disclosure of secrets. More over, it has to be investigated, wether and under which conditions the employees of the private health insurance company may disclose secrets of the assured persons to employees of external service providers, for example in the case of outsourcing, without fullfilling the physical element of offence (203 StGB).