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UK Biobank’s Endless GitHub Data Leaks: Tracking 110 Takedowns and a Half-Million Records for Sale
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UK Biobank’s Endless GitHub Data Leaks: Tracking 110 Takedowns and a Half-Million Records for Sale

WebProNews·Name·about 1 month ago
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Researchers keep uploading UK Biobank’s sensitive health files to public GitHub repositories. And the charity behind the world’s largest biomedical database fights back with DMCA notices. As of April 17, 2026, it had issued 110 such requests targeting 197 repositories from 170 developers across 14 countries. That’s according to a tracker built by Luc Rocher, associate professor at Oxford’s Internet Institute, available at biobank.rocher.lc . UK Biobank holds genetic sequences, health records, and lifestyle details from 500,000 British volunteers aged 40 to 69 when recruited between 2006 and 2010. It grants access to 20,000 researchers worldwide under strict terms barring any further sharing. Yet accidents happen. Notebooks leak sample rows. Genetic files in PLINK or BGEN formats slip out. Tabular datasets with phenotypes end up exposed. Rocher’s site scrapes GitHub’s public DMCA archive. It charts the timeline: first notice in July 2025. Steady pace through 2025.…

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