Ahmet Esad Berktas

Ahmet Esad Berktas works as a lawyer in Istanbul. He has more than 10 years of experience on data protection law.

Ahmet Esad Berktas

Ahmet Esad Berktaş works as a lawyer in Istanbul. He completed his LL.B. at Başkent University and his LL.M. on Information Technology and Commerce Law at University of Southampton. He is a PhD candidate at Turkish-German University and writing his dissertation on protection of personal data in health domain. He established Data Protection Unit in Turkish Ministry of Health (MoH) just before Personal Data Protection Law (KVKK) entered into force and drafted many legislation such as Regulation on Personal Health Data, Regulation on Health Information Management Systems, Regulation on Delivering Health Care Services Remotely (Telehealth) and Circular on Open Health Data.

He provided legal counselling services to various projects of the World Bank and the World Health Organization and took part as a consultant in several EU projects. His work focuses on data protection law as well as health informatics law and he has many books and papers written on these topics. He teaches data protection law courses at various universities.

Education

Baskent University, LL.B.

Graduated from Faculty of Law.

2010

University of Southampton, LL.M.

Graduated from Information Technology & Commerce Law, wrote his dissertation on protection of personal data and compared the relevant legislation of EU and Türkiye.

2013

Turkish-German University, Ph.D. (c)

Studying Private Law and currently writing his dissertation on clinical trials and protection of personal data.

2025

Events

Ahmet Esad Berktas has attended to many congresses, conferences, seminars, symposiums, workshops and other sectoral or academic events as a speaker.

Congress

National and international congresses participated.

Conference

National and international conferences participated.

Seminar

Seminars and symposiums participated.

Others

Workshops, summits and other events participated.

Science Boards

Genome and Bioinformatics Science Board

Linked with Health Institutes of Türkiye (TUSEB), this Board initiated and still supervising Turkish Genome Project.

Rare Diseases Science Board

Coordination and encouragement of scientific research for the development of new diagnoses and treatments in the fight against rare diseases.

BBMRI-TR / ELSI

Coordinating ELSI (Ethics, Law and Social Issues) GDPR Task Force of BBMRI-TR, which is a European research infrastructure for biobanking.

Projects

Ahmet Esad Berktas provided legal consultancy service in various regional, national and international projects either organised, coordinated, participated or funded by United Nations (UN), World Bank, World Health Organisation (WHO), Turkish Ministry of Health (MoH), European Union (EU, Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, Twinning) and Istanbul Development Agency (ISTKA).

Health System Strengthening and Support Project

The development objective of the Health System strengthening and support project for Turkey is to improve primary and secondary prevention of selected non-communicable diseases (NCDs), increase the efficiency of hospital management, and enhance the capacity of the Ministry of Health (MoH) for evidence-based policy making (Funded by World Bank).

Telehealth for Patients With Chronic Diseases Project

The UNPFA, UNFPA Turkey, WHO, UNHCR and the MoH have joined forces for the “Promoting Innovative Service Provision Models to Support the Covid-19 Health System Response” project, aiming to strengthen Türkiye’s COVID-19 response. The project is implemented with the financial support of the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund.

Smart Support Platform for Pandemic Prediction and Management

The goal is to develop an intelligent decision support platform for pandemic prediction & management. Project enables national agencies to anticipate pandemic threats and plan efforts to enhance health security. Objectives of the project include predictive modelling of pandemic outbreaks and early warning systems (Funded by European Union).

Health Status Monitor

HSMonitor is a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) project investing in Research and Development (R&D) services towards innovative ICT-enabled monitoring solutions to improve health status and optimise hypertension care (Funded by European Union).

Turkish Genome Project

Health Institutes of Türkiye (TUSEB) initiated Turkish Genome Project aiming to sequence 100,000 genomes from healthy individuals as well as rare and complex disease patients to promote better health for future generations (Funded by Presidency of the Turkish Republic).

ProEmpower

ProEmpower is a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) of innovative ICT for patient empowerment and self management for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Turkish Ministry of Health is the project coordinator and lead procurer (Funded by European Union).

Strengthening the Data Collection Capacity of Turkish National Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction

The project aims to strengthen the data collection capacity of TUBIM (Turkish National Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction), which has been dealing with drugs and drug addiction since 2006 (Funded by European Union).

Istanbul Undiagnosed and Rare Diseases Solution Platform (ISTisNA)

The main partners of the project are the the Health Institutes of Türkiye – Institute of Public Health and Chronic Diseases (TUSEB-TUHKE), Istanbul University Aziz Sancar Experimental Medical Research Institute, Istanbul Provincial Health Directorate and Disabled Peoples Confederation (Funded by Istanbul Development Agency).

Publications

Ahmet Esad Berktas has publications such as academic papers, book chapters, books and dissertations. These publications are generally written on data protection law, health informatics law and clinical trial law.

The Impact of AI on Health Industry
Book Chapter
Soon
Enterprise Information and Management Systems
Book Chapter
Soon
Algorithmic Discrimination and the Prohibition of Discrimination in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Book Chapter
View
Medical Device Clinical Trials
Book Chapter
View
Data Law
Book
View
Data Protection Law
Book
View
Privacy of Personal Data Regarding Health
Book Chapter
View
Legal Framework of Telehealth
Paper
View
Privacy of Personal Health Data
Paper
View
Explicit Consent in Protection of Personal Data
Paper
View