NHS remove health apps from library after privacy concerns
Several health apps accredited by the NHS have been pulled from its library after researchers discovered they put patients at risk of identity theft and fraud.
With nearly half a billion people using some form of health app across the world, this could be of some concern.
Researchers at Imperial College London found apps endorsed by the NHS Health Apps Library are putting patients "unnecessarily at risk" by sending personal and medical information unencrypted over the internet.
Their study examined 79 apps listed on the service over a six-month period in 2013, finding 70 transmitted data over the internet.
As well as this, 38 had a specific privacy policy which did not say what information would be sent.
A "man-in-the-middle attack" was used in the study to hack data sent over the internet.
It also identified 23 apps sending patient details without protection, of which four sent both medical and personal information.
The timing will prove uncomfortable for the Government and NHS, coming shortly after there was a drive for patient records to go digital.
The research, published in the journal BMC Medicine, said their findings questioned the "trustworthiness" of NHS accreditation.
Lead researcher Kit Huckvale said: "It is known that apps available through general marketplaces had poor and variable privacy practices, for example, failing to disclose personal data collected and sent to a third party.
"However, it was assumed that accredited apps – those that had been badged as trustworthy by organisational programs such as the UK's NHS Health Apps Library – would be free of such issues."
NHS Choices said the apps on the NHS Health Apps Library had been reviewed following the concerns, and all those which are still available were found to be clinically safe and compliant with the Data Protection Act.
A spokeswoman said: "We were made aware of some issues with some of the featured apps and took action to either remove them or contact the developers to insist they were updated."
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