Hello, I'm Susan Hume and this is the Yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Thursday, the 23rd of April, MPs were told that medical information from half a million participants in the UK's Health Data Project, UK Biobank, had been put up for sale on the Chinese online marketplace,

Alibaba. Many of us, perhaps ill-advisedly, put some personal stuff on the web,

maybe photographs of our lunch or maps of our weekend runs, but most of us would be horrified

to find all this up for sale online. Gender, age, month and year of birth, assessment centre data, attendance dates,

social neighbourhood status, lifestyle habits, measures from biological samples like maybe

hematology, biology, chemistry. This is the kind of stuff that's been detected.

The Minister Ian Murray wasn't finished. Online questionnaires, data, sleep diet, work environment, mental health, health outcomes data as well.

So they'd literally know where your birthmarks are. On the bright side, Ian Murray said that

identifying material like names, addresses and contact details did not seem to have been listed

on China's Alibaba marketplace.

The data donated by volunteers to Biobank UK is made available to accredited medical researchers globally.

The three institutions thought to be the source of the information have had their access blocked.

But speaking for the Conservatives, Lincoln Job, wondered if that was enough.

I'm left thinking, is that it? Were these institutions Chinese? What sanctions are available

either to the UK Biobank or the government on these institutions? Is they're blocking

permanent or temporary? How has Biobank reassured itself and its participants

that no further copies of the data exist?

And he asked how far this openness in the pursuit of scientific knowledge went.

Can he tell me whether any research institutions have access to UK Biobank data that are based in Russia,

Iran or North Korea, and what is the government's risk assessment.

Ian Murray said UK Biobank was very strict about who was allowed access, and none of those

...