Are Data Partners taking pre-cautions to prevent circumvention of pseudonymisation?

For each dataset, the Data Partners have evaluated the appropriate low number suppression threshold to set and whether rounding on results should be applied (where a result of 18 would be reported as 20). Data partners have also been asked not to supply exact dates, but to convert them to … Read More

Are Data Partners assessing the data protection risk from being part of CO-CONNECT?

Every Data Partner has assessed the data governance risk of taking part in CO-CONNECT. The process used varies based on the data held. As a minimum every organisation has undertaken a data protection risk assessment. Many have undertaken a full data protection impact assessment given the scale of data they … Read More

Is there commercial involvement in CO-CONNECT?

No. CO-CONNECT have made no arrangements to sell or cost recover data. All decisions on commercial access to data is retained by each Data Partner outside of and separate to CO-CONNECT.

What is the rounding of results?

Low number suppression can stop identification, but even in higher numbers it can be possible to identify someone. If we asked two questions: (Q1): How many individuals are there that had a result in October that was positive. (Answer): 400 (Q2): How many individuals are there that had a result … Read More

What data is made available from CO-CONNECT?

Under GPDR, the data released from each Data Partner is considered to be anonymised data. This can include metadata, including technical descriptive information about the dataset such as the fields, columns, tables and structure of the database. It also includes the response to a cohort discovery question, which is a … Read More

What is low number suppression?

Low number suppression is a process in which if results are below a certain threshold that a result of zero is returned instead. As an example, if we found out there was only one person who was treated in Oxford on a set day, who had a certain religion and … Read More

What legal basis is being used by the Data Partners for processing personal data?

This will vary between each Data Partner and is determined by the Data Partner

Why is pseudonymised data being used?

The datasets across CO-CONNECT have data that can be linked to other healthcare records. Retaining this capability is important as researchers understand more about the disease. As has been shown, pre-existing health conditions, ethnicity, gender and vaccination status all can impact how researchers should interpret the immune response to COVID-19.  Pseudonymisation … Read More

Are any Data Partners of CO-CONNECT processing special-category sensitive identifiable personal data?

Yes, however, it is the Data Partners only who undertake any processing of special category personal       data under their existing legal basis for holding the data. All processing is undertaken on the infrastructure under the control of the Data Partner and is not sent to a third party for any … Read More

Is CO-CONNECT moving data on individuals from Data Partners to a single database?

No. Data always remains with the Data Partner and always within their existing infrastructure. This means if the data currently resides within a TRE, it will always stay within the TRE. 

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