Joint Biosecurity Centre

(asked on 15th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what safeguards are in place to protect the security of the data held by the Joint Biosecurity Centre; and whether covid-19 patients will be (a) informed about their details being held on such a database and (b) able to submit a subject access request for that data.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 22nd March 2021

The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) holds and processes personal data to provide evidence-based, objective analysis, assessment and advice to inform local and national decision-making in response to COVID-19 outbreaks. This includes helping to inform action on testing, contact tracing and local outbreak management. The insight and analysis supports decision-makers at a local and national level to take effective action to break the chains of transmission and to protect the public.

The JBC stores and processes all data securely, for example in secure premises and on secure IT systems. The JBC uses appropriate security measures to protect any information held in our records and has written security procedures and policies. All data subject rights under the General Data Protection Regulations and the United Kingdom Data Protection Act 2018 are upheld by the JBC.

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