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NHS, Google DeepMind Medical Data Scandal Class Action Overview:
- Who: Google, its AI company DeepMind Technologies, and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
- What: The trio are accused of sharing among themselves the private medical information of about 1.6 million NHS users, in violation of data protection laws.
- Where: United Kingdom
A medical records scandal that saw about 1.6 million peoples’ private medical records shared with Google artificial intelligence company DeepMind is now going to court as part of a class action complaint.
On Sept. 30, the UK law firm Mishcon de Reya announced it was bringing a representative action on behalf of plaintiff Andrew Prismall and approximately 1.6 million individuals whose confidential medical records were obtained by Google and DeepMind Technologies in an alleged breach of data protection laws.
The class action complaint arises out of a 2015 arrangement between Google, DeepMind and the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, where the tech giants were quietly given patient health records without their knowledge or consent, the law firm says.
Prismall said he had various treatments through the NHS, and was concerned to discover that information had been shared with Google and DeepMind.
“As a patient having any sort of medical treatment, the last thing you would expect is your private medical records to be in the hands of one of the world’s biggest technology companies,” he said.
“I hope that this case will help achieve a fair outcome and closure for all of the patients whose confidential records were obtained in this instance without their knowledge or consent.”
NHS Illegally Gave Medical Data to Google for the Purposes of Developing an App
The data was reportedly given over by the Royal Free Trust to develop a clinician support app called Streams. However, last month, Google decided to pull the plug on the app.
The news comes after the Royal Free Trust was reportedly sanctioned in 2017 for passing on the private data of patients to Google in order to get the app made.
Law firm Mishcon de Reya said Thursday’s action was an important step in seeking to address the “very real public concerns” about large-scale access to, and use of, private health data by technology companies.
“It comes at a time of heightened public interest and understandable concern over who has access to people’s personal data and medical records and how this access is managed,” Mishcon Partner Ben Lasserson said.
The news comes after a number of high-profile medical data breaches. For example, U.K. law firms are currently seeking claimants who believe their data was compromised in the 2020 Transform Hospital Group data breach.
Would you be comfortable with Google being in possession of your private medical information? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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