Privacy-First Research with OpenSAFELY • Eli Holderness & Hannes Lowette • GOTO 2025

This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted. #GOTOcon #GOTOunscripted
https://gotopia.tech

Read the full transcription of this interview here:
https://gotopia.tech/articles/370

Eli Holderness - Research Software Advocate at Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science,
Speaker & Professional Nerd ‪@eliholderness8320‬
Hannes Lowette - Principal Consultant at Axxes, Monolith Advocate, Speaker & Whiskey Lover ‪@Belenar82‬

RESOURCES
Eli
https://bsky.app/profile/eli.holderne...
  / eliholderness  
https://hachyderm.io/@eli
  / eli-holderness-4890b886  
https://github.com/eli-miriam
https://eli.holderness.dev

Hannes
https://bsky.app/profile/hanneslowett...
  / hannes_lowette  
https://github.com/Belenar
  / hanneslowette  

Links
https://www.opensafely.org
https://docs.opensafely.org/ehrql
https://github.com/opensafely-core/ehrql
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DESCRIPTION
OpenSAFELY represents a revolutionary approach to medical research that prioritizes patient privacy while enabling valuable insights from healthcare data. Rather than giving researchers direct access to sensitive GP records, it allows them to submit code that runs in a secure environment, with only privacy-checked aggregated results returned.

Hannes Lowette talks to Eli Holderness about how the system works, its benefits for ensuring reproducible science, the challenges of working with data not collected for research purposes, and its potential applications beyond healthcare. The approach balances the need for medical research with strict privacy protections, ensuring patients maintain trust in how their sensitive data is used.

TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
00:47 How OpenSAFELY protects GP data
18:33 Ensuring secure, scalable medical research with OpenSAFELY
21:09 Privacy protection & output checking
22:15 Challenges: Data mismatch, privacy & trust
28:01 Secure, reproducible science with sensitive data
29:36 Outro

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Ben Goldacre • Bad Science • https://amzn.to/4lqNLKN
Ben Goldacre • Bad Pharma • https://amzn.to/3G15Mz7
Aaron Parecki • OAuth 2.0 Simplified • https://amzn.to/2A3IMOf
Aaron Parecki • OAuth 2.0 Servers • https://amzn.to/3ecHEsz
Erdal Ozkaya • Cybersecurity: The Beginner's Guide • https://amzn.to/2T6OIj3
Saleem Siddiqui • Learning Test-Driven Development • https://amzn.to/35OMb3n
Jacqui Read • Communication Patterns • https://amzn.to/3E37lvv

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#openSAFELY #erhQL #Healthcare #ResponsibleResearch #Privacy #PrivacyProtection #Security #Cygersecurity #Rlang #Stata #EliHolderness #HannesLowette

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