Doctors call for criminal charges over data leak

Junior doctors whose details were leaked onto the internet have called on the police to mount a criminal investigation against those responsible.

Some 130 medical staff have signed a letter asking the commissioner of the Metropolitan police to investigate the leaking of students' medical details onto the internet. Senior medical professionals, including consultants, GPs and fellows, have signed the letter, alongside junior doctors and medical students.

They fear that the leaking of doctors' personal details, including addresses, telephone numbers, and data about religion, criminal convictions, and sexual orientation, not only puts the doctors themselves at risk, but could potentially allow others to impersonate doctors.

"The worst case scenario is that child sex offenders may gain access to settings such as paediatric wards, GP surgeries and other healthcare settings because they have stolen the identity of a junior doctor or medical student."

"We believe this may justify a criminal investigation by the Metropolitan Police," the letter says.

The security breach was brought to light by Channel 4 News, which revealed that the Medical Training Application System website had failed to include basic security measures.

Channel 4 News showed that it was possible to access the personal information of junior doctors through the service by altering a few digits of the URL code or web address of pages on the site.

The Department of Health said in a statement at the time that the release was first brought to light: "This information was never publicly available through the NHS Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) website and was only accessible for only a short period of time after details of the URL were leaked. The MTAS team fixed the problem as soon as it was brought to their attention."

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