Google DeepMind 1.6m patient record deal 'inappropriate'

The transfer of 1.6m patient records to Google's artificial intelligence company DeepMind Health has been criticised for its "inappropriate legal basis" by the UK's national data guardian. In a letter leaked to Sky News, the national data guardian, Dame Fiona Caldicott, warned DeepMind's partner hospital, the Royal Free, that the patient record transfer was not for "direct care" since the data was initially used to test the app that the two organisations were working on, before patients were treated with it. The carefully worded letter does not directly state that the data transfer was unlawful, but while trusts are allowed to transfer data for direct care purposes, many other reasons for transferring the data require more explicit approval from regulators – approval the partnership lacks. The app, Streams, was first announced in February 2016 as a collaboration between the two organisations to diagnose acute kidney injuries in NHS patients. Its creation has led to a long-running row over the nature and propriety of information sharing between the two bodies.