Monday, December 23, 2024

Curb Chinese access to British genome data, ministers urged

Must read

Experts claim that this is a crucial resource for China allowing it to gain a major advantage in developing new medicines as well as potentially biochemical weapons. 

The previous Tory government had sought to reduce the threat of Beijing by conducting “risk assessments” over companies working on genomics research. 

This included new plans to increase scrutiny over Chinese and Chinese-owned genomics companies. 

Conservative ministers had planned to investigate how much data the UK shares with “certain companies”, Mr Griffith said, as he called on the new Government to do the same. 

However, there are fears that Labour will be less willing to stage a clampdown on China. 

Mr Griffith said he had “considerable concerns” over whether the new Government was committed to tackling risks from Beijing. 

Mr Griffith said: “Whilst the last prime minister most recently described China as the ‘greatest state-based threat’ to the UK’s economic interests, the new Foreign Secretary has already doubled back on his previous commitments to address the threat China poses. 

“This comes on top of senior Labour figures claiming that the new Government is seeking a warmer relationship with China.”

The US has already cracked down on China’s access to American data, last year adding a Chinese company which sells prenatal tests to pregnant women to a blacklist.

Washington claimed there was a risk that the information could be fed back into Beijing military programmes. 

The same company, BGI, sold the prenatal tests at private clinics in the UK. 

BGI also landed a Covid-19 testing contract during the pandemic and earlier this month was accused of stealing trade secrets from Oxford scientists. 

BGI said it was surprised about the trade secrets allegation, which it repudiates. It said it would take all necessary actions to protect its legal rights and would vigorously defend itself against any allegations of misconduct.

A spokesman said: “Any allegations that BGI funnelled data to China are false.”

The group has maintained that its labs meet stringent standards in data security and that it has “never been asked to provide, nor provided, testing data to Chinese authorities for national security or national defence purposes”. 

Following the pandemic testing contract, it said it had no access to patient data in the UK.

However, China’s National Intelligence Law dictates that Chinese companies must support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.

Latest article