The Labour government is planning to sell NHS data to boost research and general revenue, Science Secretary Peter Kyle has suggested.
Mr. Kyle said ministers are “not squeamish” about commercialising anonymised NHS data and will grab opportunities “with both hands.”
The remarks came after Labour promised to introduce a Digital Information and Smart Data Bill, which would allow scientists to seek broad consent for areas of research and allow commercial researchers to make equal use of the UK’s data regime.
A Data Protection and Digital Information Bill introduced by the previous government would also broaden the definition of “scientific research” to include commercial research, but the bill was aborted after the general election was called.
Promoting the upcoming bill, the science secretary said: “At the moment, people can apply for access to data relating to one very, very specific type of cancer and it’s released to them. After the data bill passes, they can apply more broadly to a broader set of cancers or cancer itself,” in an interview with The Times of London.
“Discovery happens not by understanding at the outset where the destination is, but exploring potential which sometimes can take people more broadly into it and in counterintuitive ways. We want to capture those discovery elements,” he said.
The minister said that having a welfare state and the NHS means the UK has the “potential to have a data set that is so wide, even when anonymised and protecting the individual health of people, we have something that nobody else in the rest of the world does,” adding, “we’re not even touching the sides of our potential at the moment.”
In January, formal political rivals Sir Tony Blair and Lord William Hague jointly published a paper calling on the government to sell anonymised medical records via a newly created company.
The former party leaders said it would boost research and help the UK remain competitive amid a global race of artificial intelligence.
Asked about the model, Mr. Kyle said the government is “not squeamish about commercialisation.”
“We believe that solving our health problems and creating wealth for our country aren’t incompatible. Actually very often the commercial sector delivers incredible innovation,” he said, vowing to grab the potential for public-private partnerships “with both hands.”
The minister stressed that the government will “always seek the consent of individuals and patients” and “reassure people and explain to people how we are protecting their privacy and safety.”
On Thursday, Mr. Kyle announced that Amazon Web Services (AWS) will provide $10 million (around £8 million) worth of cloud computing credits to UK Biobank, as well as access to other AWS services such as AI and machine learning, and the government will match the contribution with £8 million in investment as part of a public-philanthropic consortium that was set up last year.
Before Labour won in the general election, then-opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer said he would introduce NHS “patient passports.” The party has also promised to create a National Data Library to “bring together existing research programmes and help deliver data-driven public services.”
At the time, Subhajit Basu, professor of Law and Technology at the University of Leeds, told The Epoch Times while selling data can generate revenue, “the more widely data is circulated, the higher the risk of it falling into the wrong hands, including individual hackers or hostile states, misused by insurance companies.”
The professor said it’s important to have well-designed systems where people can opt out.
