The NHS has given the medical records of 1.6 million patients to Google’s AI technology DeepMind, according to a news report.
The New Scientist reports that the records have been shared with Google as part of a data-sharing agreement between the technology giant and the NHS.
The records relate to patients of three London hospitals which form the Royal Free Trust; Barnet, Chase Farm and Royal Free Hospital collected over the course of the last five years.
An estimated 1.6 million patients attend the hospitals every year.
Google says it intends to use the data as part of its group DeepMind to develop a health app which can help recognise kidney injury.
However, campaigners have expressed concerns that the data-share is a breach of trust and not in patients’ interest.
To try and calm privacy fears, Google has stated that it is following strict HSCIC information governance rules.
Google has been criticised in recent times for perceived privacy breaches due to the amount of data which it holds on individuals.
In 2014, 38 US states sued Google when it was alleged that the cars with which the company takes Google Street View photographs had also been collecting data from computers inside the homes they drove past.