Home Office increases use of NHS data to trace illegal immigrants
The Home Office has sharply increased its number of subject access requests to NHS records as part of a move to trace illegal immigrants. It has made 2,367 requests in the first three months of this year; three times the number of requests made in 2014.

The Home Office has dramatically increased the number of requests it is making for access to NHS records, a little-known tactic the department uses to trace people it suspects of being in the UK illegally.

Analysis by BuzzFeed News of official figures published on Friday by the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) – an offshoot of the Department of Health – shows the number of requests from the Home Office in the first three months of 2016 was 84% higher than a year before, and more than 225% higher than in 2014.



Medical records are generally protected by strong data protection laws that forbid them being shared even among government bodies without patients' permission. However, the Home Office, like the police and the National Crime Agency (NCA), has an exemption allowing it to access non-clinical records.

This means these agencies can see when and where a patient accessed NHS services, but do not see details of medical conditions or any treatment they received.

The agencies do not need a court order to access this data. Typically, the Home Office gets general information – what hospital or GP clinic a patient uses – from centralised records, then contacts the clinic directly for specific details.

The Home Office made 725 requests for records in the first three months of 2014, official data shows, rising to 1,289 for the same period in 2015, and 2,367 in the first three months of 2016 – a threefold increase in two years.