Hungary opens national eHealth infrastructure to AI developers under new data access rules

Hungary's amended health data law (Act XXIX of 2024) took effect on 1 January 2026, allowing the operator of the national eHealth infrastructure (EESZT) to grant researchers and medical technology companies access to stored health data for AI algorithm training, testing, and development, as well as for medical device evaluation. Applicants must obtain ethics committee authorisation from the Medical Research Council and process only anonymised data, with pseudonymised data permitted only where anonymisation is demonstrably insufficient.

Hungary is now one of the first EU Member States to operationalise a formal secondary use pathway for health data through its national eHealth system — three years before EHDS secondary use provisions apply in 2029. The mechanism includes a secure processing environment within EESZT, aligning with the architecture the EHDS will eventually require of all Member States. For MedTech companies and AI researchers, Hungary just became the first practical testing ground in the EU for accessing population-scale health data through a legally defined process.