Oxford Secretly Used Millions Of Patients' Cell Phone Data For Vaccine 'Mobility Study'
Oxford Secretly Used Millions Of Patients' Cell Phone Data For Vaccine 'Mobility Study'
BY TYLER DURDEN MONDAY, MAY 24, 2021 - 09:02 AM
In a flagrant violation of patients' medical privacy that has
just come to light, the British government has admitted to collecting and using
smartphone data to analyze their activity without disclosing it as part of a
vaccination study.
A report by the Independent Scientific Pandemic Insights Group
on Behaviours claimed researchers from the University
of Oxford discreetly used data from mobile phones as part of their study into
how vaccination affected the lifestyles' of patients. The
report was first cited by the Telegraph.
SPI-B advises the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies,
better known as SAGE, which is responsible for advising the government and has
played a key role in the UK's battle against COVID. Oxford, which helped
develop a vaccine alongside British-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca,
was responsible for collecting the data.
The massive study involved scientists digging through cell phone
records for 10% of the British population in February to single out a group of
roughly 4,250 who were monitored more closely for insights about vaccination's
impact on individual lifestyle.
Researchers performed "various robustness checks"
sorted by age, and used the data to measure "distance from home to
vaccination point" for the typical patient, among other things. They used
the data to determine that the "average pre-vaccination mobility increased
by 218 meters [sic]."
A government spokesperson insisted the data had been properly
anonymized and that it was collected "at cell tower rather than individual
level". Researchers also received approval from Oxford. Still, privacy
group Big Brother Watch says the findings are "deeply chilling and
extremely damaging to public trust in medical confidentiality."
"Between
looming Covid passports and vaccine phone surveillance, this Government is
turning Britain into a Big Brother state under the cover of COVID," the group
added.
The unwitting participants were given “a new token of
identification” every month to preserve their anonymity, and the only basic
demographic data that was shared with scientists was age.
"It
is not GPS tracing data which is commonly used by some large commercial
companies for targeted advertising," the source said.
The study was allowed by the UK’s privacy watchdog, the
Information Commissioner's Office, allowed the use of phone data in fighting
the coronavirus. "Public bodies may require additional collection and
sharing of personal data to protect against serious threats to public
health," the ICO spokesperson said.
Pro-data privacy campaigners have repeatedly warned about
contact-tracing and other medical apps that were developed during the pandemic
and their potential to result in lasting data abuses. Last month, Google
and Apple refused to make an update for the NHS contact-tracing app available
for download on their app stores, a clear sign that the UK
government was willing to cross a line that even the US tech giants which have
been put through hell by the US Congress over concerns about privacy and
potential abuses, were uncomfortable with.
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