TLDR Tech / InfoSec
Medical data of 500k Biobank volunteers listed for sale on Alibaba, UK minister reveals
Data on 500,000 UK Biobank volunteers was found listed for sale on Alibaba by an unknown source, apparently after three Chinese research institutions downloaded bulk datasets against contractual rules. UK Biobank revoked their access, suspended all platform access, capped export file sizes, and will deploy automated checks on data exports. Exposed fields include demographics, socioeconomic status, lifestyle, and rich biomedical markers, raising re-identification risk even without explicit identifiers.
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