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].” – READ MORE
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