Google is being sued over its use of confidential medical records belonging to 1.6 million individuals in the UK. The company's artificial intelligence arm, DeepMind, received the data in 2015 from the Royal Free NHS Trust in London for the purpose of testing a smartphone app called Streams. The claim is being brought by Andrew Prismall in a representative action in the High Court. It alleges that Google and DeepMind "obtained and used a substantial number of confidential medical records without patients' knowledge or consent". Why did Google get access to patient records?

A wide-ranging, UK government-commissioned industrial strategy review of the life sciences sector, conducted by Oxford University's Sir John Bell, has underlined the value locked up in publicly funded data held by the country's National Health Service -- and called for a new regulatory framework to be established in order to "capture for the UK the value in algorithms generated using NHS data". The NHS is a free-at-the-point of use national health service covering some 65 million users -- which gives you an idea of the unique depth and granularity of the patient data it holds. And how much potential value could therefore be created for the nation by utilizing patient data-sets to develop machine learning algorithms for medical diagnosis and tracking. "AI is likely to be used widely in healthcare and it should be the ambition for the UK to develop and test integrated AI systems that provide real-time data better than human monitoring and prediction of a wide range of patient outcomes in conditions such as mental health, cancer and inflammatory disease," writes Bell in the report. His recommendation for the government and the NHS to be pro-active about creating and capturing AI-enabled value off of valuable, taxpayer-funded health data-sets comes hard on the heels of the conclusion of a lengthy investigation by the UK's data protection watchdog, the ICO, into a controversial 2015 data-sharing arrangement between Google-DeepMind and a London-based NHS Trust, the Royal Free Hospitals Trust, to co-develop a clinical task management app.

The UK's National Data Guardian (NDG) has criticised the National Health Service (NHS) for its partnership with Google's artificial intelligence company DeepMind. According to a letter published by Sky News yesterday, Google DeepMind has received personal health data from 1.6 million NHS patients on a legally inappropriate basis. An investigation is currently being carried out by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), with the ICO telling Sky News that it is "close to conclusion." The letter from Dame Fiona Caldicott of the NDG was sent to NHS Royal Free Trust medical director Stephen Powis on February 20th. DeepMind was given access to NHS records in 2015 to test a smartphone app called Streams on the legal basis that it was offering "direct care."

Google DeepMind received 1.6 million identifiable personal medical records on an "inappropriate legal basis", according to a letter written by Fiona Caldicott at the UK's National Data Guardian, a government watchdog that monitors patient confidentiality. The letter obtained by Sky News was sent to the medical director of the Royal Free NHS Trust in London on 20 February. The data sharing agreement between the trust and DeepMind was first revealed by a New Scientist investigation last year. Google's AI firm originally obtained the NHS patient records to test a smartphone app called Streams that could help monitor people with kidney disease. A quarter of acute kidney deaths are preventable if caught early, so DeepMind wanted to use its algorithms to try to spot early signs of the disease.

Across the world there is an estimated 285 million visually impaired people, and 39 million of these are blind. Conditions like age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy can be picked up is using digital screenings, which are highly complex and take a lot of time to analyse. Now Google's DeepMind Health is teaming up with a London eye hospital to investigate how machine learning could help analyse these scans efficiently and effectively. Moorfields Eue Hospital in London has announced a new medical research partnership with Google's DeepMind Health that could revolutionise the way professionals carry out eye tests and lead to earlier detection of common eye diseases Diabetes is on the rise. It's estimated that 1 in 11 of the world's adult population are affected.

The collaboration marks the first time DeepMind has applied machine learning to a healthcare project. The idea came to Pearse Keane, a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields, after he read a story about a DeepMind machine being trained to play Atari games. "I'd been reading about deep learning and the success that technology had had in image recognition," Keane told the Guardian. "I had the brainwave that deep learning could be really good at looking at the images of the eye." If successful, the technology will be capable of detecting eye conditions with a single digital scan.

A company owned by Google has been given access to the healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients from three hospitals run by a major London NHS Trust. DeepMind, the tech giant's London-based company most famous for its innovative use of artificial intelligence, is being provided with the patient information as part of an agreement with the Royal Free NHS trust, which runs the Barnet, Chase Farm and Royal Free hospitals. It includes information about people who are HIV-positive as well as details of drug overdoses, abortions and patient data from the last five years, according to a report by the New Scientist. DeepMind announced in February that it was developing a software in partnership with NHS hospitals to alert staff to patients at risk of deterioration and death through kidney failure. The technology, which is run through a smartphone app, has the support of Lord Darzi, a surgeon and former health minister who is director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London.

Up to 1.6 million patients have had their private medical files passed on to Google without their permission, it was revealed today The internet giant was given the data by one of the largest NHS trusts to develop an app to monitor possible kidney failure. The encrypted information includes the names and medical histories of every patient who had stayed in hospital overnight or attended A&E in the past five years. None of the patients was told beforehand and the revelation has exposed the ease with which private companies can obtain highly sensitive medical information without consent. Privacy campaigners told MailOnline that the revelations exposed the public's lack of power and control over their own personal details. Experts say the deal between Google and the Royal Free NHS Trust could set a precedent for patient data to be routinely passed on to private firms.

The NHS shares patient data with 1,500 outside organisations including Google and doesn't ask first because it is'not practical', it was revealed today. Private firms including computer giants and consultancy agencies are among those who are being supplied with the confidential records. Only this week the Royal Free NHS Trust in London revealed that it had passed on medical files of up to 1.6million patients to a Google subsidiary to develop an app. This included highly personal details such as whether patients had been diagnosed with HIV, suffered from depression or had ever undergone an abortion. Under Government rules drawn up in 2013, staff do not have to obtain patients' prior consent as long as the information does not include names and is being used to improve care.

Up to 1.6 million patients have had their private medical files passed on to Google without their permission, it was revealed today The internet giant was given the data by one of the largest NHS trusts to develop an app to monitor possible kidney failure. The encrypted information includes the names and medical histories of every patient who had stayed in hospital overnight or attended A&E in the past five years. None of the patients was told beforehand and the revelation has exposed the ease with which private companies can obtain highly sensitive medical information without consent. Privacy campaigners told MailOnline that the revelations exposed the public's lack of power and control over their own personal details. Experts say the deal between Google and the Royal Free NHS Trust could set a precedent for patient data to be routinely passed on to private firms.