Report: Google Secretly Collecting Data on Millions of Americans
Tech giant Google is reportedly engaged in collecting the personal health information of tens of millions of Americans across 21 states — a project dubbed “Project Nightingale” — and has not notified patients or doctors about what they are doing.
“Google began Project Nightingale in secret last year with St. Louis-based Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals, doctors’ offices and other facilities, with the data sharing accelerating since summer,” according to internal documents obtained exclusively by The Wall Street Journal. “The data involved in the initiative encompasses lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, including patient names and dates of birth.”
“Neither patients nor doctors have been notified,” the Journal added. “At least 150 Google employees already have access to much of the data on tens of millions of patients, according to a person familiar with the matter and the documents.”
Google teamed up with Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals spread out over 21 states and in the District of Columbia, and other doctors offices launch the project last year.
Forbes reports that the project “involves Ascension moving patient records onto Google’s cloud servers and includes a search product that allows Ascension healthcare providers to see an ‘overview page’ about their patients. The page includes complete patient information as well as notes about patient medical issues, test results and medications, including information from scanned documents, according to presentations viewed by Forbes.” (Read more from “Report: Google Secretly Collecting Data on Millions of Americans” HERE)
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