NHS data is a goldmine. It must be saved from big tech | James Meadway

Health datasets play a vital role in medical research. If the US has its way, the UK could lose a valuable public resource

As a society, we are finally acquiring a healthy scepticism about the use and abuse of our personal information. New polling conducted by YouGov for the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that 80% of the public want to see tighter rules applied to how the likes of Facebook and Amazon use their data. Over the weekend, it was revealed that US pharmaceutical companies have already been sold data relating to millions of NHS patients and that Amazon, incredibly, has been given free access to NHS data Hidden away in the secret US-UK trade papers, leaked and revealed by Labour in November, is perhaps the biggest single threat to public data yet seen.

Instead of the encroaching privatisation of publicly held data, we should be looking to create a "digital commons"