Three London hospitals give Google DeepMind 1.6 million patient records

In 2012, London Royal Free, Barnet, and Chase Farm hospitals agreed to provide Google's DeepMind subsidiary with access to an estimated 1.6 million NHS patient records, including full names and medical histories. The company claimed the information, which would remain encrypted so that employees could not identify individual patients, would be used to develop a system for flagging patients at risk of acute kidney injuries, a major reason why people need emergency care. Privacy campaigners objected on the basis that the patients weren't informed and that it was difficult to understand why DeepMind needed so much detail in order to create the application they intended.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/03/controversy-as-google-given-access-to-nhs-patient-data/

Writer: Laura Donnelly
Publication: Daily Telegraph
Date of publication: 2016-05-03