TECH NEWS – A civil lawsuit has been filed against DeepMind for using the medical records and data of more than one and a half million patients from the UK’s National Health Service (hereafter referred to as the NHS!)…

AI News reported that the company behind the artificial intelligence that beat gamers in Starcraft 2 had obtained this data to create a health app called Streams, which the NHS used until the announcement in August when it was announced that Streams is to be decommissioned. DeepMind’s health segment now gives a 500 error (no access).

The New Scientist wrote back in 2017 that Google had access to health data back in 2017, and much more than was officially announced. The UK Information Commission launched an investigation after the Royal Free hospital failed to protect its patients’ data. At the time, committee member Elizabeth Denham said, “Our investigation found several shortcomings in the way patient records were shared for this trial. Patients would not have reasonably expected their information to have been used in this way.” For this, DeepMind has also apologised.

But history is repeating itself, as a case was filed against Google on behalf of 1.6 million patients, led by Andrew Prismall. Prismall was himself a patient at the hospital in question, and those affected have an opt-out option. Prismall said in his statement, “Given the very positive experience of the NHS that I have always had during my various treatments, I was greatly concerned to find that a tech giant had ended up with my confidential medical records. As a patient having any medical treatment, the last thing you would expect is your private medical records to be in the hands of one of the world’s biggest technology companies. I hope that this case will help achieve a fair outcome and closure for all of the patients whose confidential records were obtained in this instance without their knowledge or consent.”

Oliver Dowden, UK Secretary of State for Culture, says that after Brexit, “There’s an opportunity for us to set world-leading, gold-standard data regulation which protects privacy, but does so in as light-touch way as possible”. While this is an honourable task, the NHS is a political battleground anyway, as it is run on taxpayers’ money. Still, the private sector is slowly creeping into the picture… and because of this, there are fears that the US system may show up in the UK (in many cases, our paid contributions do not cover the costs, so we still have to pay).

This could also make for an exciting future for artificial intelligence.

Source: PCGamer