Contact Tracing: Data Protection

(asked on 22nd July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to his oral contribution of 20 July 2020, Official Report, column 1865, on Coronavirus Response, what was the scope of each of the three data protection impact assessments; and when he plans to publish those assessments.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 7th September 2020

The NHS Test and Trace programme is progressing at a fast pace of development to rise to the challenges posed by the pandemic. We are continuing to work on the overarching Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA). This is a live document which continues to evolve as the programme develops, as such we are meeting our obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation as implemented by the Data Protection Act 2018.

The three data protection impact assessments referred to are:

- The DPIA for the NHS COVID-19 App, of which a second iteration has now been published to coincide with the launch of the pilot phase of the new app. This can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nhs-test-and-trace-app-privacy-information/the-nhs-test-and-trace-app-early-adopter-trial-august-2020-data-protection-impact-assessment#the-nhs-test-and-trace-app-data-protection-impact-assessment

- The DPIA for Public Health England Contact Tracing, and;

- The DPIA for National Antigen Testing.

As internal information risk assessments documents, DPIAs are not routinely published.

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