Public Health England (PHE) will keep personally identifiable information collected by NHS Test and Trace of people with COVID-19 symptoms for 20 years.
The privacy notice from PHE also says it will keep the personally identifiable information collected on the contacts of people with COVID-19 but who do not have symptoms for five years.
Youngjin Yoo, Project Lead of Sharetrace, Faculty Director of xLab, Case Western Reserve University and WBS Distinguished Professor for Research Environment, Warwick Business School, said: “The privacy notice has stated that the NHS will hold onto personally identifiable information for 20 years. While they claim this is to help prevent the spread of Coronavirus in the future, this will be highly concerning for many.
“It fails to take into account that user preferences might change over that time. They may be happy to offer the data now to prevent the wider spread of the current pandemic, but why should it be held to prevent a future pandemic that may never happen?”
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