Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made on whether data collected using the NHS covid-19 contact tracing app can be categorised as anonymous under UK law.

The data collected cannot identify an individual. It is not however anonymous: the data is categorised as pseudonymous and therefore is treated as personal data although not identifiable.

Existing law and National Health Service standards set out a framework of protective measures to ensure the app is legally compliant and meets the standards expected to keep data secure and confidential. These include the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation 2016, Data Protection Act 2018, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (as incorporated into United Kingdom law by the Human Rights Act 1998) and the common law duty of confidentiality.