Here's one for those of you concerned about your privacy. Google-owned artificial intelligence company DeepMind is getting access to 1.6 million NHS patient records to supposedly help it develop an app!
New Scientist
Now isn't that good of the NHS to share your personal information with Google. I'm sure you are all very grateful that you are helping them make loads more money from yet even more of your personal information.
Oh and if you read it carefully you will see they will even know who visited you, and when whilst in hospital. So tell your friends and family that they too will be kindly donating to the survival of Google People.
Quote:
It’s no secret that Google has broad ambitions in healthcare. But a document obtained by New Scientist reveals that the tech giant’s collaboration with the UK’s National Health Service goes far beyond what has been publicly announced.
The document – a data-sharing agreement between Google-owned artificial intelligence company DeepMind and the Royal Free NHS Trust – gives the clearest picture yet of what the company is doing and what sensitive data it now has access to.
The agreement gives DeepMind access to a wide range of healthcare data on the 1.6 million patients who pass through three London hospitals run by the Royal Free NHS Trust – Barnet, Chase Farm and the Royal Free – each year. This will include information about people who are HIV-positive, for instance, as well as details of drug overdoses and abortions. The agreement also includes access to patient data from the last five years.
DeepMind announced in February that it was working with the NHS, saying it was building an app called Streams to help hospital staff monitor patients with kidney disease. But the agreement suggests that it has plans for a lot more.
This is the first we’ve heard of DeepMind getting access to historical medical records, says Sam Smith, who runs health data privacy group MedConfidential. “This is not just about kidney function. They’re getting the full data.”
Google says that since there is no separate dataset for people with kidney conditions, it needs access to all of the data in order to run Streams effectively. In a statement, the Royal Free NHS Trust says that it “provides DeepMind with NHS patient data in accordance with strict information governance rules and for the purpose of direct clinical care only.”
Still, some are likely to be concerned by the amount of information being made available to Google. It includes logs of day-to-day hospital activity, such as records of the location and status of patients – as well as who visits them and when. The hospitals will also share the results of certain pathology and radiology tests.
As well as receiving this continuous stream of new data, DeepMind has access to the historical data that the Royal Free trust submits to the Secondary User Service (SUS) database – the NHS’s centralised record of all hospital treatments in the UK. This includes data from critical care and accident and emergency departments.
Royal Free did not respond to New Scientist’s questions about what opt-out mechanisms are available to its patients. There is already a way for patients to opt out of SUS data collection, but it is not straightforward and involves writing to your GP. But this does not cover live data on admission, discharge and transfer of patients.
New Scientist
Now isn't that good of the NHS to share your personal information with Google. I'm sure you are all very grateful that you are helping them make loads more money from yet even more of your personal information.
Oh and if you read it carefully you will see they will even know who visited you, and when whilst in hospital. So tell your friends and family that they too will be kindly donating to the survival of Google People.