How we process Airlock requests

Once an Airlock request is received, it is reviewed by the Airlock Team. Some requests can be resolved by the Airlock Team alone however other cases must be referred to the Airlock Committee.

The Airlock Committee include the Caldicott Guardian, user representatives and other subject matter experts who use their expertise in Genomics, Bioinformatics, Clinical care, Statistics, Ethics and other relevant fields to advise the Airlock Team to the best of their ability about whether files are acceptable for import/export. Getting the “Approval of the Airlock Committee” means receiving approval from a minimum of two members of the committee.

We may ask you questions during the review process. Please reply to these promptly, as doing so will speed up the review process.

Once a decision has been reached, the Airlock Team will contact you and inform you of the outcome. In the case of a rejection, the Airlock Team will explain the reasoning and suggest how to edit the file(s) to make them acceptable for import/export.

We aim to review all requests as soon as possible after they are made and most are resolved within two working days. However, due to either there being a very high number of active requests at a given time or due to Airlock Committee members' availability this is not always possible. Therefore, please make your Airlock requests a full 10 working days before you need your files to be approved wherever possible. This is especially true for requests involving individual level data which are much more likely to require committee approval.