Google's use of Brits' medical records to train an AI and treat people was legally "inappropriate," says Dame Fiona Caldicott, the National Data Guardian at the UK's Department of Health.
In April 2016 it was revealed the web giant had signed a deal with the Royal Free Hospital in London to build an artificially intelligent application called Streams, which would analyze patients' records and identify those who had acute kidney damage.
As part of the agreement, the hospital handed over 1.6 million sets of NHS medical files to DeepMind, Google's highly secretive machine-learning nerve center. However, not every patient was aware that their data was being given to Google to train the Streams AI model. And the software was supposed to be used only as a trial – an experiment with software-driven diagnosis – yet it was ultimately used to detect kidney injuries in people and alert clinicians that they needed treatment.
Dame Caldicott has told the hospital's medical director Professor Stephen Powis that he overstepped the mark: it's one thing to create and test an application, it's another thing entirely to use in-development code to treat people. Proper safety trials must be carried out for medical systems, she said.
We are going to see many more stories like this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:07PM
If one never gives one's true details [youtube.com], it doesn't matter who 'slurps' one's records.
(Score: 1) by rw63phi on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:35PM (3 children)
Your tax dollars at work, Brits.
We face the same kind of BS this side of the pond.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:29AM (2 children)
Everything in the UK belongs to the Crown. We don't "pay taxes", exactly. Since all of our money belongs to the Crown, the Crown can call for it at any time. Think of it as "paying interest" rather than "paying taxes".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:30AM
That idea works in the US as well. Every dollar in circulation belongs to the Federal Reserve. We pay interest to the Fed for permission to use their money. So, we don't pay taxes either!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @03:37PM
Use gold?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:24AM (2 children)
The answer is to always lie to the government and perform Bayesian poisoning. Google should never be allowed access to such vast amounts of personal data, and they can't ever demonstrate that they could be trusted with it.
You can't trust the government either, since I didn't see them take a fucking vote to ask the Brits if they wanted to turn over highly sensitive medical data to a 3rd party American company that specializes in selling access to data to other 3rd parties.
This was an absolutely huge and flagrant violation of the Hippocratic Oath which only illustrates in sharp relief what happens when people who don't respect the Hippocratic Oath are allowed access to medical data. If that fuckwit that made this decision had read it, then perhaps, just perhaps, over 1 million Brits wouldn't be laid naked in front of Google.
Somebody needs to be sacked, and then prosecuted.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tonyPick on Wednesday May 17 2017, @07:15AM (1 child)
That's a viable strategy for Facebook or webapp of the week. For medical data, where your health might rely ion it being correct, or maybe a Tax Return or Census form, where you're legally required to fill out things correctly, then this is not a viable strategy.
Which is why there are laws about this, and why people responsible at Google and the hospital in question should be going to Jail for a very long time to stomp on this kind of abuse hard.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday May 17 2017, @10:00PM
No, it's the only viable strategy for life. Regardless of the law, there is an information war in progress. Information Asymmetry is rampant, and the Actors involved have wildly divergent levels of power. All information that leaves you must be considered beforehand, and almost all information that leaves you is purely used against you by the aforementioned Actors.
Even though you may have no power, if they have no information about you, you do in fact have some power and safety. If they have false information about you, that is even better. They must use their resources to use and vet false data, and that time is something that is also valuable for you, since you can be moving around and emitting even more false data.
It gets much better when weak Actors cooperate together and emit both false and true information. Other weak actors would have the ability to determine truth from false, but other more powerful Actors would lack the information to do so, and it would be more difficult requiring greater expenditure of resources.
Legally required? Bwhhahahahah. They can kiss my nuts. What is legal and not legal is often determined solely by the more powerful Actors to the disadvantage of the weaker ones. In other words, I practice civil disobedience at all times. Yes, I lie habitually as a defense mechanism against the government and corporations. However, I do let the census at least know as much information as my voter registration. Which is a cross street within 5-10 miles of where I sleep. I essentially tell the government that I'm homeless, as I will never let them know where I sleep.
I decide what laws I follow, consequences be damned. Otherwise, you've given into fear and enabled totalitarianism to flourish. That I believe is what it means to be a free American. Fuck the suits making their own laws with their corrupt puppets in government. Good laws that make sense, and are obviously for the common good, I follow. Laws that are clearly protectionist in nature designed solely to increase the wealth of the rich? I wipe my ass with them.
As for the medical, I found a doctor willing to keep nearly everything out of the records. They understand that the only way I will receive medical care is if I have privacy, or I will receive no medical care beyond the emergency room where I can lie about my identity. They reviewed my current medical records in front of me since I brought the binders with me, and the doctor returned all of my records without making a copy. All I have is their word for it, but I'm trusting that a doctor will follow the Hippocratic Oath first, and then the laws of the land second. I also only ever speak to the doctor, or the nurses that assist them. Never to the parasites administering the bureaucracy of it all, as they don't know what the Hippocratic Oath is when you ask. That's the litmus test; Do you know the Hippocratic Oath and will you take it for me?
You mean like laws against contributing to the death of 29 people because of gross negligence? Laws are not applied equally, and the stronger the law, with the more powerful the actor, and the greater the consequences, the less the law is enforced, and the weaker the consequences will be. That is our justice system. So no, you will never find justice and protection within the law.
I agree, they should be going to jail for a long time. Just like the bankers that were laundering billions for the drug lords that were determined to be too-important-to-jail. The U.S DOJ literally said that these bankers were too important to the overall process and therefore were not going to meet any consequences. If you were a U.S citizen, you might be a little bit pissed that these Ivy league douchenozzles receive no consequences, but a homeless black man hungry for a hamburger can get 15 years in prison for going crazy and cooking his own burger in a closed burger joint he broke into. He was even remorseful about it, and still got 15 years from some hard ass judge getting kickbacks for increasing for-profit prison system revenue.
Sorry, but wake up. There is an information war around you, and nobody is playing fair according to the law. Your only defense is to manipulate the information flow to the best of your ability.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zeigerpuppy on Wednesday May 17 2017, @12:30AM (3 children)
everyone who had their data used illegally should be compensated for this data breach.
if Google or anyone else made money from the improper use of data there seems a strong case for civil prosecution.
It's also quite likely that handing over this data is a criminal breach of medical data handling.
It'll need a class action to succeed however, talking on Google's lawyers would be tricky to say the least.
This wanton breach of personal data protection principles is a great example of why Google should not be trusted, they have gone above and beyond in treating us all as their property and will continue to do so unless action is taken to set limits on their personal data slurping machine.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:30AM
None of these projects should be allowed unless the resulting code, data set, etc is considered 'in the public domain', if possible scrubbing identifying information, and if not scrubbing what information they can (like names) while leaving the links between records left in (for geneological purposes if necessary to help improve diagnosis.)
The problem long term is that Big Data, like pervasise surveillance technology, only works if information asymmetry is removed by providing everyone with the complete set of information. This does have dangers in the form of stalking, targetted murder, etc. But that will inevitably happen with these systems anyway now that the technology is out there. The only way let to attempt to mitigate the damage caused is to ensure everyone is on a level playing field, and if the 'upper tier'/'people benefititing from asymmetric access to information' are punitively (through targeted data attacks, or legal/physical punitive measures) dealt with for continuing to broker a system of haves and have nots.
I expect many people will disagree with me, but much of the loonyness Stallman often gets berated for is coming to pass, even if the time taken to reach both panopticon and maximum information asymmetry is taking longer than expected.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:04PM (1 child)
if Google or anyone else made money from the improper use of data there seems a strong case for civil prosecution.
It may be that they didn't make money out of this particular event. But unless the knowledge gained, code produced etc is shared with the public. It's all the same people provide the data and megarich gains the profit.. from the people.
So at the minimum the British citizens now own this AI and can use it for free to make better prediction for who should get an extra checkup etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:37PM
Can the data be poisoned to suggest daily & mandatory proctology exams for the entire Google and related workforce?
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:57AM (5 children)
From TFS:
*blinks*
Do I read this wrong - or are they saying it is ok to hand over your medical records but not to use the data in them to call you in for an extra checkup?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @07:34AM (2 children)
poor peoples data is just data but automated doctors is an attack against a profession.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:03PM
I think you hit the nail on the head
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday May 17 2017, @04:06PM
There are already expert systems which together with a nurse can outperform a doctor on diagnosing. But in some countries you loose your license to practice if you dare to use such system.. go figure..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Wootery on Wednesday May 17 2017, @07:52AM (1 child)
it's one thing to create and test an application, it's another thing entirely to use in-development code to treat people. Proper safety trials must be carried out for medical systems, she said.
Yeah... apparently a program saying This person is at a high risk, you should do a check-up somehow constitutes 'treating people'.
How is that the outrageous part of all this?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @12:09PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @08:17AM
I have given Google a pass in the past for claims of "monopoly" because most of what I've seen has been sour grapes by the competition. This, however, is clearly abuse of power. In the US, this would be a HIPAA violation; not sure what it would be in UK. In my book, Google now has a yellow card, and further infractions will land them on my shit list.