Google takeover of NHS-linked health app is 'totally unacceptable', privacy lawyer says

Google subsuming the artificial intelligence-powered Streams app represents a 'trust demolition'

Privacy campaigners have raised fears for patient data following Google’s takeover of a health app used in NHS hospitals.

London-based AI firm DeepMind said its Streams app will be subsumed by the technology giant in a move that one expert described as “totally unacceptable” and a betrayal to patient’s privacy.

DeepMind, which is owned by Google but has operated the app independently until now, justified the decision in a blog post explaining how Google would allow the app to scale in a way that would not be possible by itself.

The app provides doctors and nurses with an easy-access dashboard of patients’ medical records.

“Our vision is for Streams to now become an AI-powered assistant for nurses and doctors everywhere – combining the best algorithms with intuitive design, all backed up by rigorous evidence,” the post stated.

“The team working within Google, alongside brilliant colleagues from across the organisation, will help make this vision a reality.”

Last year, the Streams app attracted controversy after the UK’s data watchdog found that the NHS had illegally handed 1.6 million patient records to DeepMind as part of a trial.

DeepMind subsequently made assurances that the medical data “will never be linked or associated with Google accounts, products or services”, and that all patient data will remain under the strict control of its NHS partners.

Despite these reassurances, privacy advocate and lawyer Julia Powles wrote on Twitter that Google’s takeover of the Streams app is of significant concern.

“This is TOTALLY unacceptable. DeepMind repeatedly, unconditionally promised to *never* connect people’s intimate, identifiable health data to Google”, Ms Powles wrote. “Now it’s announced... exactly that. This isn’t transparency, it’s trust demolition.

“The whole Streams app is now a Google product!! That is an atrocious breach of trust, for an already beleaguered product.”

Google declined to comment when The Independent asked whether the tech giant would have access to NHS patient records as part of the Streams takeover. It is not clear whether Google is contractually obliged to the same agreements made between DeepMind and the NHS Trusts it worked with – Imperial, Moorfields Eye Hospital, Royal Free, Taunton, and Yeovil. The Independent has reached out to the trusts for clarification.

A DeepMind spokesperson said its core pledge regarding patient data was still in place.

“All patient data remains under our partners’ strict control, and all decisions about its use lie with them,” the spokesperson said. ”This data remains subject to strict audit and access controls and its processing remains subject to both our contracts and data protection legislation. The move to Google does not affect this.”

An independent ethics panel, which was set up by DeepMind’s founders when Google acquired the startup in 2014, said in July that there should be greater distance between DeepMind’s health projects and Google’s parent company Alphabet.

“We encourage DeepMind Health to look at ways of entrenching its separation from Alphabet and DeepMind more robustly, so that it can have enduring force to the commitments it makes,” the report stated.

“The relationship with Google is a constant question that runs through many areas of DeepMind Health’s business.”

This panel has been disbanded as part of the latest restructuring, with the DeepMind spokesperson saying that the British-focussed panel did not fit with the new global structure of the venture.