BECS data security, confidentiality and storage

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Data Security and Confidentiality

Your identity will be kept confidential at all times. Only the principal investigator will have access to the paper based consent forms which will be kept in a secure locker and the online secure server. You will be given a unique study ID which means all datasets will be pseudonymised, i.e. none of your identifiable information will be on our secure network. Only the BECS research team will be able to access and analyse this data, and only the data needed for research purposes will be used, linked only by your unique study ID.

You can change your consent to the study and your permission to the research team to access your past loyalty card data at any time by contacting us directly at becs@milk-research.com or contacting the principal investigator, Dr James Flanagan (j.flanagan@imperial.ac.uk). Please do not share any sensitive information over email (e.g. your date of birth).

Data Storage

Advised by data protection specialists based at Imperial College London, we designed this project around a robust data security model aiming to protect sensitive personal and medical data from the potential risk of unauthorised access or distribution. These are the measures we took to ensure that your data is processed fairly and securely.

  1. The data will be analysed in a secure environment with access limited to the research team. No one other than the research team listed on this document will have access to the research dataset. All data will be stored and processed in the College’s ISO27001 certified secure environment – the “Secure Enclave”. This is a fully managed infrastructure and secure environment providing high availability, resilience and business continuity through multiple servers, back-ups and disaster recovery measures.
  2. We are not sharing any information except the anonymised data to identify samples.
  3. All and only anonymised outputs from this project will be made publicly available on our website and in academic platforms, and will not include individual information. We will aim to publish outcomes in peer-reviewed academic journals and also on social media.