The Ministry of Health is creating a unified information base for individuals with mental health problems.
The Parliament of Georgia supported, in the third reading, amendments to the Law “On Mental Health,” based on which the Ministry of Health is obliged to create a unified information base for individuals with mental health problems, alcoholism, drug addiction, or substance abuse.
This initiative, set to be activated on March 1, 2026, aims to ensure the effective functioning of public safety mechanisms. According to the explanatory note of the document, the data will be used to decide on issuing licenses, permits, and driving rights related to increased danger to citizens, including admission to a driving license exam. The amendments also affected the placement of data of persons with disabilities in the same base in cases stipulated by law.
The Ministry of Health’s initiative to create a unified information base for individuals with mental health problems was immediately met with outrage from professional circles and the public. Critics note that such a centralized database creates an increased risk of human rights violations and discrimination.
The Georgian Psychologists Trade Union issued a clear statement, highlighting the potential dangers of this initiative:
“Problems related to mental health should not be a tool for controlling, discriminating against, or manipulating people!
Any information related to mental health belongs to the category of particularly sensitive data, the collection, storage, or dissemination of which poses a threat to the violation of basic human rights and increases the risk of discrimination and stigmatization.
Centralized databases where this information will be gathered are extremely high-risk.
Such a system can be used to control citizens, for discrimination, and for restricting rights in employment, education, and other areas.
To avoid the problems associated with being included in the database, a person may refuse to seek help, which will aggravate the mental health problem.”
The Psychologists Trade Union urges that any decision be based on the highest standards of confidentiality, ethics, and the protection of human rights.
In an interview with “Medscriptum,” psychiatrist Giorgi Berulava states that the creation of the registry primarily contradicts patients’ rights:
“Safety and confidentiality are the main issues. For patients, the right to confidentiality and complete anonymity, depending on the request, is a guaranteed right both by the Constitution of Georgia and the Law on the Protection of Patients’ Rights. Therefore, the creation of such a unified registry in electronic format is associated with enormous risks that patient data will leak and become public.”
Berulava emphasizes that the government’s focus should be on correcting existing problems: “There is a severe epidemic of suicides in Georgia, which is exacerbated by the fact that there are no places in hospitals nowadays. That is, the focus should be on correcting these types of problems, not on creating lists.”
Professor of TSMU, psychiatrist Nino Okribelashvili, explains on social media why the mental health registry is “the most risky and sensitive decision.” She emphasizes that the main problem with the registry is that it identifies and groups a person by status, and not by treatment need.
Professor Okribelashvili explains:
“What does ‘registry’ mean? The mental health registry has one main problem: it identifies and groups a person not by the need for treatment, but by status.
That is, if someone is once placed in the registry, they remain there not as a person, but as a category, which leads to stigma, control, and restriction of rights.
For example, if a person has the diagnosis: $F63.3$ Trichotillomania (hair pulling), they will face serious difficulties with legislation regarding the issuance of a driving license, despite the fact that this condition has no connection with the safety of passengers and the road.”
As psychiatrist Nino Okribelashvili notes, the registry of individuals with mental health problems is considered a high-risk decision in most countries around the world. Historical and contemporary examples demonstrate that such databases can easily become a tool for political, subjective, or bureaucratic persecution:
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In South Korea, insurance companies illegally used psychiatric data and denied citizens insurance.
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In the US (in the 1950s), people with psychiatric histories were blacklisted and forbidden from working.
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In Russia, inclusion in the “Supervisory Registry” means the loss of professional rights and state control.
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In Belarus and China, similar systems were used for the forced treatment of political opponents and to exclude candidates from specific positions.
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An example of security risks is Finland, where 30,000 psychotherapy records were stolen, leading to threats of blackmail against people.
These examples highlight the main ethical question: “Who and by what criteria will decide what constitutes a ‘risk’ and who will be considered a ‘danger’?” Democratic countries prioritize strictly confidential medical records, not state-identifiable public registries.
Psychologist Jana Javakhishvili speaks about a much broader danger, noting that the creation of the registry is discrimination on an unprecedented scale. According to her, world statistics show that so-called “common mental disorders” (anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc.) are experienced at least once in a lifetime by every fourth person, and in conflict- and crisis-affected Georgia, this figure reaches 30% or more.
“What does this mean? That one-third of our population should be reported by doctors and psychologists to a special list of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This is discrimination on an unprecedented scale.”
Javakhishvili emphasizes that such a law will sharply reduce the rate of seeking mental health services: “Countless people will be left without professional help, and suicide statistics will increase.”
She compares the action to the Russian scenario, where registries are used as a lever for intimidating and oppressing the population, contrary to the approach of civilized Western states, which increase social protection and fund services.
According to psychologist Lola Lomidze, the mental health registry bill poses a serious threat to human rights and the development of the mental health system. Historical experience shows that such registration turns into a tool of control and repression. For example, the “registration” (учёт) of mental illnesses operating in the Soviet Union divided citizens into “dangerous” categories, and the data was automatically transferred to the security agencies (KGB), which was systematically used to violate human rights.
Similar severe consequences are found in contemporary examples: in China, the “Security Registry” led to data leaks and a 27% drop in seeking treatment. Most alarmingly is the example of Japan, where, within the framework of the “Eugenics Protection Act” (1948–1996), the database of individuals with mental disorders was used for forced sterilization, for which the government issued an official apology in 2019.
Lomidze also points to scientific baselessness: she states that the registry is not a tool for improving security because, according to WHO data, the fear of supervision reduces the seeking of mental health support by 30–50%. This is compounded by the fact that, according to a meta-analysis in the American Journal of Psychiatry, mental illnesses are only associated with 3–5% of crime. Accordingly, the psychologist says, the registry is an unscientific, ineffective, and harmful mechanism whose use has historically already shown its repressive potential.
