Google is now involved with healthcare data – is that a good thing?
▻http://theconversation.com/google-is-now-involved-with-healthcare-data-is-that-a-good-thing-58
Google has some of the most powerful computers and smartest algorithms in the world, has hired some of the best brains in computing, and through its purchase of British firm Deepmind has acquired AI expertise that recently saw an AI beat a human grandmaster at the game of go. Why then would we not want to apply this to potentially solving medical problems – something Google’s grandiose, even hyperbolic statements suggest the company wishes to?
The New Scientist recently revealed a data sharing agreement between the Royal Free London NHS trust and Google Deepmind. The trust released incorrect statements (since corrected) claiming Deepmind would not receive any patient-identifiable data (it will), leading to irrelevant confusion about what data encryption and anonymisation can and cannot achieve.
As people have very strong feelings about third-party access to medical records, all of this has caused a bit of a scandal. But is this an overreaction, following previous health data debacles? Or does this represent a new and worrying development in the sharing of medical records?
