Health data of more than 500,000 people stolen and put on sale on Chinese website after charity database breach

The UK Biobank charity's database was breached, resulting in the theft of health data from over 500,000 volunteers. The data was offered for sale on three separate listings on the Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba. Technology minister Ian Murray told MPs that the government took the incident extremely seriously and acted rapidly to support the charity. The government worked with the Chinese government and the vendor to remove the listings, and the charity has revoked access to three research institutions identified as the source of the information. UK Biobank has paused further access to its data until a technical solution is put in place to prevent similar breaches. The charity has also tightened security measures, including monitoring daily for suspicious behavior and limiting the size of files that can be taken off the platform.