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An investigation by the Guardian has found that confidential health data from the UK Biobank has been leaked online. The project holds the genome sequences, blood samples and lifestyle information of 500,000 volunteers, making it the most comprehensive database of its kind. This database has been the basis of several medical breakthroughs relating to cancer, dementia and heart disease. But researchers appear to have accidentally shared some of the information, including millions of hospital diagnoses, along with the sex and birth details of more than 400,000 participants. This data could be cross-referenced in one case to reveal an individual’s identity. Biobank issued 50 legal notices to GitHub in the second half of last year, asking the developer platform to remove data. This suggests that leaks might be a frequent occurrence.
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