ISTOCK, PHOTOBYLOVELast year, New Scientist revealed that DeepMind Health (DMH), a London-based, Google-owned artificial intelligence (AI) company, had access to the health records of 1.6 million patients, and had received them without proper consent.
This occurred through a data-sharing agreement the company made with the Royal Free NHS (National Health Service) Foundation Trust to test and develop an app called Streams, which monitors patients with kidney disease.
In a report released Monday (July 3), the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), an independent body in the U.K. set up to uphold information rights, found that the Trust breached the Data Protection Act when it provided Google with patients’ information. The ICO also noted that there were several issues with how data were handled, such as the lack of proper informed consent.
“Patients would not have reasonably expected their information to have been used in this way, and the Trust could and should have been far more transparent with patients as to ...
