When is your data anonymous?

In a joint piece for Digital Health, Paul Affleck – a current member of the Ministry of Defence Research Ethics Committee and a research programme manager at the University of Leeds and GP Dr Imran Khan, explore when health data is anonymous.

Routine healthcare data provides tremendous opportunities for research and improving future care. It is also an area of considerable controversy as demonstrated by the care.data and GP Data for Planning and Research programmes.

The law governing the use of routine healthcare data is complex and, in some areas, open to differing interpretations. Therefore, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is to be applauded for seeking feedback on its draft anonymisation, pseudonymisation and privacy enhancing technologies guidance.