Health charity UK Biobank has informed the UK government about the appearance of datasets from its research platform on Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba. The listings were swiftly taken down, with no reported purchases as no one paid for access. Ian Murray, a Labour MP and minister of state at the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology, praised the Chinese government for their prompt action in removing the listings.
Murray clarified that the exposed files did not contain personal details like names, addresses, or contact numbers. One of the datasets listed seemed to encompass data from all 500,000 volunteers on the platform. These volunteers had contributed to the charity to enhance global research capabilities. The government confirmed that there were no purchases from the listings before they were removed.
The datasets potentially included information such as gender, birth month and year, attendance dates, socioeconomic status, lifestyle habits, sleep patterns, diet, mental health, and health outcomes. While the risk of identification based on this data is deemed low, complete exclusion of such a possibility cannot be guaranteed. UK Biobank has temporarily halted access to its research platform as a precautionary measure and has imposed restrictions on file sizes that can be downloaded.
UK Biobank’s CEO, Rory Collins, mentioned that access for the three research institutions linked to the data leak has been revoked. The charity is taking steps to safeguard participant data and ensure data security.
