Biobank data incident caused by 'a few bad apples', boss says

Biobank data incident caused by 'a few bad apples', boss saysJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleLiv McMahonTechnology reporterBBCProfessor Sir Rory Collins told the BBC that, as Biobank's boss and also a participant, he is "angry" and "upset" about the data breachThe boss of UK Biobank Professor Sir Rory Collins has said a "few bad apples" were behind the incident which saw medical data belonging to 500,000 participants listed for sale on a website in China.Datasets containing de-identified information about its volunteers made available to researchers at three academic institutions were found to have been posted for sale on Alibaba last week, the government said on Thursday.It said the listings were "swiftly" removed before any purchase took place but the charity is now facing scrutiny over how the incident occurred.Sir Rory told the BBC he was "angry" and "upset" about it, and the institutions concerned had been banned from its platform.He added the organisation was "essentially putting science on hold" by temporarily suspending all access to its online research platform while it put additional controls in place "to prevent anything like this happening again".The Biobank is a collection of health data offered by UK volunteers which has been used to help improvements in detection and treatment of dementia, some cancers and Parkinson's.Its online research platform allows scientists at approved academic institutions around the world to access its datasets - which include de-identified medical information about participants - for their own research."In this case, a few bad apples have taken those data off the platform and they have listed the data for sale," Sir Rory told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme."By working swiftly with the UK government and the Chinese government, and we're really grateful for their help, we have been able to...