Medical data, including genetic, physiological, and health habit information, from half a million volunteers collected by UK Biobank was put up for sale for several hours, before being withdrawn, by a Chinese website associated with the online retail giant Alibaba.
“UK Biobank informed the Government [last Monday] that its data had been put up for sale by several individuals through Alibaba’s online retail platforms in China,” the Minister for Communications, Culture and Sport, Ian Murray, announced to the British House of Commons this week.
UK Biobank, an independent body that operates with private and public funding, has meticulously recorded the medical data of half a million volunteers since 2006, with ages ranging from 40 to 69 years when they joined the study.
The information obtained from voluntary participants is very comprehensive, and includes imaging data, biomarkers, genetic data, medical histories, questionnaire responses, body measurements, as well as demographic data, the participant’s environmental surroundings, or their lifestyle.
Researchers worldwide can access UK Biobank information through a rigorous application process. Since this access was first allowed in 2012, more than 18,000 papers (scientific research articles, in the field’s terminology) with information from this database have been published after peer review.
According to UK Biobank, the information that was put up for sale online had been provided to three academic institutions before it ended up on Alibaba’s platforms. The company, in collaboration with the Chinese and British governments, acted immediately to remove the data from the network.
The database assures that the leaked data did not contain the personal identification of any of the volunteers, such as their names, addresses, or phone numbers.
The British Government assures that it is convinced that, during the hours the data was online, no buyer acquired it.
Criticism of Security
The reassuring messages issued by the data bank itself and the British Government have failed to convince many academics and experts who had already expressed concern about the numerous cybersecurity incidents that UK Biobank has recently suffered.
“It is the 198th episode in which Biobank data has been exposed online since last summer. Not only is their information put up for sale, but it also remains accessible to anyone who wants to download it today. Researchers, in the past, have repeatedly and accidentally uploaded databases to shared code platforms, and many of those files have then been replicated across the internet,” denounced Luc Rocher, associate professor at the Oxford Internet Institute via the Science Media Centre Rapid Reaction page.
UK Biobank has explained, through a spokesperson, that researchers accessing its data are required to work on “secure cloud-based platforms in the UK, to prioritize information security.”
However, the Government has asked the data bank to temporarily suspend researchers’ access until a technical solution is found to prevent a similar incident in the future.
“They have assured us that the foundation will immediately review its security barriers for accessing its data. In the short term, it will suspend downloads from its platform. Until a new system exists to control those downloads for researchers with prior approval,” Murray assured the British Parliament.
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