UK: Private companies data-mine NHS databases to build predictive computer models

Palantir and the British AI start-up Faculty are data-mining large volumes of confidential UK patient information to consolidate government databases and build predictive computer models under contract to NHSx, the digital transformation arm of the UK's National Health Service. NHSx said the goal is to give ministers and officials real-time information to show where demand is rising and equipment needs to be deployed, and that the companies involved do not control the data and are not allowed to use or share it for their own purposes. Leaked documents suggest the project is proceeding with inadequate attention to privacy, ethics, or data protection, and that the supposedly anonymised data is being cross-matched to other datasets. 

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confidential-patient-data-in-coronavirus-response

Writer: Paul Lewis,David Conn, and David pegg
Publication: Guardian