Google Secretly used Health Data of Citizens in 21 States of America

New York: The company Google has been accused of secretly collecting the health data of millions of US citizens. Google has also been accused of using the data of millions of citizens of 21 states in the last one year without telling them. Google has tied up with Ascension, a healthcare provider. The company operates about 150 hospitals in 20 US states. Data of patients being treated in hospitals operated by the company was uploaded to Google Cloud without their knowledge. On Monday, only a few employees of Ascension Company disclosed the matter.

Google and Ascension have jointly started Project Nightengale to improve health services. Both companies have analyzed the health data of millions of patients in the last one year. The company says that this data is used for better information of the patient to the doctor.

Allowed to share health records of patients in the US

According to the information, the data collected by Ascension includes patient name, age, date of birth, medical history, disease test report, treatment and medicines information as well as hospitalization data. Although patients' records are allowed to be shared with health care companies in the US, people have expressed concern over the use of their personal information and breach of privacy.

Use of Artificial Intelligence to read health records

Under the project of Google and Ascension, Artificial Intelligence is also being used to read patients' health records. Companies say that this helps in collecting accurate information about the level of the disease and it can be treated better. Both companies have claimed that the data collected under Project Nightengale can also determine the direction of treatment of patients.