Google's Past Data Use Could Impede Its Health Care Push

Alphabet's London-based AI lab DeepMind made history in 2016 when its AlphaGo software defeated a champion at the complex board game Go. On Tuesday, the company said it was handing off a seemingly much simpler software challenge: a health care app for hospital staff called Streams being tested by UK hospitals. That project and its staff will be transferred to DeepMind's much larger sister, Google. The announcement prompted an outcry from privacy researchers, which, along with legal constraints on the move, illustrating the challenges Google faces expanding its data-hungry operating style into the more sensitive business of health care. Last week, Google hired health industry veteran David Feinberg, who previously led the Pennsylvania health system Geisinger, to unify its scattered projects in the field.