Privacy advocates have raised concerns about patients’ data after Google said it would take control of its subsidiary DeepMind’s healthcare division. Google, which acquired London-based artificial intelligence lab DeepMind in 2014, said on Tuesday that the DeepMind Health brand, which uses NHS patient data, will cease to exist and the team behind its medical app Streams will join Google as part of Google Health. It comes just months after DeepMind promised never to share data with the technology giant and an ethics board raised concerns over its independence. A separate research team at DeepMind will continue to function independently of Google, but under the umbrella of its parent company Alphabet. DeepMind health has already come under scrutiny from data watchdogs in the past. Last year, the Royal Free hospital in London was found to have breached the Data Protection Act over its handling of NHS patients’ data when using the Streams app, which was developed by DeepMind. Streams is an application that aims to help doctors spot patients who may develop kidney disease. It was developed using data from the Royal Free Hospital. In July, an independent ethics board said DeepMind needed to do more to prove its independence from Alphabet. The board was drawn up at the request of DeepMind’s founders when it was purchased by Google for £400m. The latest report read: “To what extent can DeepMind Health insulate itself against Alphabet instructing them in the future to do something which it has promised not to do today?… [Read full story]
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