NHS data sharing deal with Google prompts concern

Privacy campaigners have criticised a data sharing agreement between the Royal Free Hospital in London and Google’s artificial intelligence subsidiary, DeepMind. Under the deal, DeepMind would have access to five years’ of patient data—provided in accordance with NHS England’s information governance rules—as part of a project to improve the detection of acute kidney injury. The project was not research but clinical care. DeepMind would use the data to drive a smartphone app called Streams which aimed to provide almost instant information about any patient whose blood tests showed evidence of kidney failure. The patient data campaign group MedConfidential questioned why Google needed so much data. Phil …