‘China data theft’: 500,000 Britons’ details put for sale online
The government has revealed that confidential medical data belonging to half a million Brits was put up for a sale on a website in China.
Data stored in UK Biobank, the world’s most comprehensive set of information on health that is used by scientists for research, was put on Alibaba.
The data did not contain personal information belonging to Britons and rather had “de-identified” details for volunteers who were aged between 40 and 69 in 2010.
Information was put up for sale on the e-commerce website and has since been removed, with Biobank also said to have had “lax” security arrangements to protect data.
Technology minister Ian Murray said there had been “an unacceptable abuse of the UK Biobank charity’s data and abuse of the trust that participants readily expect”.
“The government takes this incident extremely seriously which is why we have acted rapidly to support the UK Biobank charity in their response and why I wanted to update the House at this earliest opportunity,” Murray told MPs.
“The government will soon be issued new guidance on controlling data from research studies, and I’d like to take this opportunity once again to urge all businesses and charities to ensure their systems and data sharing processes are as secure as possible.
“We wrote out to businesses last week about the cybersecurity tools available to them for free from the government and the steps they should take to maximise security. Ensuring the safe use of UK Data is a priority for this government.”
New China scandal breaks out
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice labelled the breach a “China data theft scandal”, citing the use of taxpayer cash to the tune of £200m to set up UK Biobank.
“This scandal is essentially a China data theft scandal of UK Biobanks data, generously donated by some half a million British citizens,” Tice said.
Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrats technology spokeswoman, said the breach was a “profound betrayal of people who trusted this institution” and urged the government to hold UK Biobank accountable.
Professor Sir Rory Collins, chief executive and principal investigator of UK Biobank, said it was “developing the world’s first automated checking system able to prevent de-identified participant data from being taken off the UK Biobank research platform” without preventing scientists from being able to do their work.
“We intend to have this automated system in place around the end of this year,” his statement said.