UK Biobank is restoring research access nearly seven months after a data breach prompted the platform to shut down. The organization said a cybersecurity firm verified the Research Analysis Platform’s security after medical data of about 500,000 patients was listed for sale on Alibaba. UK Biobank paused access and suspended unnamed academic institutions and individuals from using the resource. In recent steps toward reopening, leadership said the biobank is waiting for agreement from the UK government and national health data controllers, with phased reintroduction planned. During the remainder of 2026, access will be limited and paired with a manual output checking process before scaling up with automated checks in 2027. UK Biobank also requires users to complete a mandatory course for working with the dataset via common code repositories. For the research community, the move reduces uncertainty about data availability, but also reinforces tighter compliance expectations around handling and exporting participant information.