DeepMind's access to UK health data shows how tech could outgun privacy laws

Google's artificial intelligence unit DeepMind engaged in "highly questionable" practices when it struck a 2015 deal to access years' worth of UK hospital patient records held by the National Health Service, says a paper published March 16 in the journal "Health and Technology." The paper, written by Cambridge University law academic Julia Powles and Economist journalist Hal Hodson, is the first piece of scholarship to analyze the terms by which 1.6 million patient records from three London hospitals that are part of the NHS Royal Free London trust were shared with DeepMind. That agreement was replaced by a 2016 deal that the authors will analyze in future. The earlier agreement is currently being investigated by two UK regulatory bodies. One of those investigations, by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), is "close to conclusion," the ICO says. The paper argues that both DeepMind and the hospital administrations, in their eagerness to take advantage of national data-sets, were too lax in the way the data was shared.