NHS data breaches: a further erosion of trust

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has found that users of NHS data have failed to comply with the terms of their agreements for managing and using data received from NHS Digital. There was no evidence of malicious use or any harm caused to patients. Natalie Banner, the former lead for Understanding Patient Data, says this highlights the weakness of an approach to data security that relies on contractual agreements. She suggests secure technology should make the dissemination of data under contractual terms obsolete and researchers should have access to data in secure computational spaces.