Google DeepMind, NHS announce new agreement to address data sharing concerns

DeepMind, Google's UK-based AI subsidiary, has signed a new agreement with the NHS after the pair's February deal was scrutinized over the amount and type of patient data Google would have access to. An investigative report by the New Scientist revealed that Google would have access to a huge trove of patient data without the patients' express consent, a potential violation of NHS information governance principles. With the new announcement, DeepMind is taking care to avoid a repeat of that situation with a host of new data protections. The new agreement is a five-year partnership with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. It will be a deployment of DeepMind's Streams app, which helps doctors get information about their acute kidney failure patients – including blood tests– faster, which will enable faster diagnostics in situations where time is of the essence. Once the app gets through the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (similar to the United States' FDA), DeepMind plans to roll it out to NHS hospitals in early 2017.