According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, Google has collected the personal health data of millions of life insurance owners – in partnership with Ascension, one of the country’s largest healthcare systems.
Who is Ascension?
Ascension Health is a faith-based non-profit healthcare organization. They have over 2,600 clinics – including 150 hospitals and more than 50 senior living facilities – in 21 states. Ascension’s website indicates they provide services such as clinical and network services, venture capital investing, investment management, biomedical engineering, facilities management, risk management, and contracting through Ascension’s group purchasing organization.
Ascension is committed to delivering compassionate, personalized care to all, with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable.
The secret transfer called Project Nightingale between Ascension and Google raises questions about patient privacy because the transfer occurred without patient knowledge or express consent. Data collected includes whole health history such as lab and test results, hospitalization records, medications, diagnoses, and treatment records. Ascension said that the project is covered by what is known as a business associate agreement clause in HIPAA. “We believe Google’s work with Ascension adheres to industry-wide regulations (including HIPAA) regarding patient data and comes with strict guidance on data privacy, security, and usage.”
What does Google want to do with this data?
Healthcare companies are increasingly moving their patient records off their premises and into the cloud. Google saw a business opportunity and partnered with Ascension for free. Google claims it wants to improve patient care and believes artificial intelligence tools will help the healthcare industry get there. With Google’s computing power on medical data, applications will be faster, data will be more accessible to doctors in real-time, and illnesses could (potentially) be predicted and lead to new treatments or cures.
Google is not the only tech giant interested in entering the healthcare industry. Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft are all aggressively trying to get into the healthcare business. Google insists its goal is to provide better care to patients, but there are some concerns about what else Google might want to do with the data.
The concern
According to a Google employee whistleblower working on the Nightingale project, data held by Ascension of more than 50 million Americans were transferred to Google with full personal details. The identifiable information, including patient names and medical history, was accessible to 150 Google employees. No one told patients and doctors about their data getting transferred to Google. Therefore, they could not opt in or out of the transfer of their information.
The whistleblower raised security and privacy concerns about placing vast amounts of medical data in the digital cloud. What happens if this information is hacked or leaked? What happens if there is a glitch? Could it have implications for the patient? What are Google’s intentions with this data in the future? Where do we draw the line with sharing personal data with a big tech company? The whistleblower also warns that Google may sell this data to third parties without public consent. In this scenario, advertisers could target patients based on their medical history. Google promises it will not use patient data for its own advertising or research. However, Google does not exactly have the best track record:
- Google and its YouTube subsidiary pay $170 million in fines for illegally collecting personal data on children to sell ads.
- Google gets sued for leaving sensitive and identifiable information in health data for a research project with the University of Chicago.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has opened a federal inquiry to ensure full implementation of HIPAA protections occurred during the data transfer for life insurance. Some lawmakers are expressing concern over the Nightingale project and are calling for more oversight. So far, Google is cooperating with federal investigators.
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