Rishi Sunak is under pressure to follow the US and bar the Chinese genome research company BGI Group from government contracts as the firm recommitted to continue its work in the UK.
MPs on the defence, foreign and health select committees along with former Lib Dem cabinet minister Alistair Carmichael have joined calls for action over fears that the company and others pose a security risk to genetic data in the UK.
Last week, Washington added BGI subsidiaries BGI Research and BGI Tech Solutions to a trade blacklist due to concerns over the risk of Americans’ genetic data being stored and misused.
In the UK, BGI Genomics, part of BGI Group, was awarded a Covid testing contract in 2021. The Chinese company has also worked alongside and shared data with UK universities and the Wellcome Trust charitable foundation.
In a statement to the Guardian, BGI Group said it intended to build on its work during the pandemic in the UK.
“In recognising the UK’s global leadership in genomics and life sciences, BGI Group took the strategic decision to invest in the UK before the pandemic,” a spokesman for the company said.
“During Covid-19 we helped the UK government to fight against the pandemic by providing PCR testing kits to the Department of Health and other parties. BGI will continue to support the UK in improving the health of people.”
In a letter to the prime minister, Labour MPs Taiwo Owatemi, Siobhain McDonagh, John Spellar and Carmichael warn of the “huge ethical, privacy, commercial and security risks” involved in continuing to allow Chinese state-linked companies access to sensitive government contracts.
They call for a procurement bill currently being scrutinised in parliament to include clauses that would “remove state-linked Chinese genomics firms, such as BGI, from the government’s procurement supply chain”.
The government has already tightened the bill, which will introduce rules for firms competing for government contracts worth £300bn a year, to give ministers discretion to exclude companies from contracts where a national security risk can be demonstrated.
But there is growing clamour for the prime minister to go further and designate certain sectors as being highly sensitive, to which foreign state-controlled or linked companies would be mandatorily barred access.
Carmichael said: “The government has claimed the procurement bill will strengthen our national security but the litmus test will be how companies like BGI are treated.
“Any company compelled under Chinese law to share sensitive information must be stopped from accessing our data, especially sensitive genomic data. That is what our allies in the Five Eyes [the intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US] are doing and we must emulate this approach. We need a consistent response to a genuine threat. Soundbites are not enough.”
The MPs are also seeking a review of whether BGI’s investments with UK financial institutions, their private sector contracts and their relationships with UK universities could pose a risk.
As evidence of the need to end these relationships, the MPs cite a Reuters report that claims a prenatal test taken by millions of women globally, said to have been developed by BGI Group in collaboration with the Chinese military, has been used to collect genetic data.
The prenatal gene Nifty test uses a sample of blood from a pregnant woman to detect conditions such as Down’s syndrome in a developing foetus.
More than 8 million women globally have taken BGI’s prenatal tests in at least 52 countries, including Britain, Europe, Canada, Australia, Thailand and India, but not the US.
BGI reportedly sends leftover blood samples to its laboratory in Hong Kong. The genetic data is said to have been stored for population research in the government-funded China National GeneBank in Shenzhen, which BGI runs.
The BGI Group spokesman said they believed the US decision may have been “impacted by misinformation”, adding that their UK operations met all local regulations and laws.
He said: “Our lab in the UK has its own local servers, and data processed in the UK remain in the UK and the EU. BGI Group’s labs meet stringent standards in information security.
“BGI Group does not condone and would never be involved in any human-rights abuses. BGI Group is not ‘state-linked’. None of BGI Group is state-owned or state-controlled, and all of BGI Group’s services and research are provided for civilian and scientific purposes.”
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: “The procurement bill will strengthen our protection against national security threats, including allowing central government to reject suppliers which pose a threat to national security.”
