UK Says Google's DeepMind AI Partnership With National Health Service Broke Data Privacy Law

A British regulatory organization has found that the National Health Service violated data privacy laws when it shared patient records with Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence startup. In a statement announcing its findings, the Information Commissioner's Office said the Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust did not comply with the Data Protection Act when it provided partial records for more than 1.6 million patients to DeepMind. The data was originally provided to help bolster DeepMind's Streams app and improve detection of acute kidney injury and other medical problems. However, the Information Commissioner's Office found that the Foundation Trust should have taken additional measures to inform patients about the data use. In its release, commissioner Elizabeth Denham said Streams and DeepMind's work had clear benefits, but the Trust should have been clearer about the amount of data it needed and the reasons it wanted patient data.