Yet other digital privacy betrayals

The global situation......

The Guardian, 14 November 2018:

Google has been accused of breaking promises to patients, after the company announced it would be moving a healthcare-focused subsidiary, DeepMind Health, into the main arm of the organisation.

The restructure, critics argue, breaks a pledge DeepMind made when it started working with the NHS that “data will never be connected to Google accounts or services”. The change has also resulted in the dismantling of an independent review board, created to oversee the company’s work with the healthcare sector, with Google arguing that the board was too focused on Britain to provide effective oversight for a newly global body.

Google says the restructure is necessary to allow DeepMind’s flagship health app, Streams, to scale up globally. The app, which was created to help doctors and nurses monitor patients for AKI, a severe form of kidney injury, has since grown to offer a full digital dashboard for patient records.

“Our vision is for Streams to now become an AI-powered assistant for nurses and doctors everywhere – combining the best algorithms with intuitive design, all backed up by rigorous evidence,” DeepMind said, announcing the transfer. “The team working within Google, alongside brilliant colleagues from across the organisation, will help make this vision a reality.”

DeepMind Health was previously part of the AI-focused research group DeepMind, which is officially a sibling to Google, with both divisions being owned by the organisation’s holding company Alphabet.

But the transfer and vision for Streams looks hard to reconcile with DeepMind’s previous comments about the app. In July 2016, following criticism that the company’s data-sharing agreement with the NHS was overly broad, co-founder Mustafa Suleyman wrote: “We’ve been clear from the outset that at no stage will patient data ever be linked or associated with Google accounts, products or services.”

Now that Streams is a Google product itself, that promise appears to have been broken, says privacy researcher Julia Powles: “Making this about semantics is a sleight of hand. DeepMind said it would never connect Streams with Google. The whole Streams app is now a Google product. That is an atrocious breach of trust, for an already beleaguered product.”......

Here in Australia......

Canberra Times, 15 November 2018, p.8:

The chairman of the agency responsible for the bungled My Health Record rollout has been privately advising a global healthcare outsourcing company. Fairfax Media discovered the relationship between the UK-based company Serco and the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) chairman Jim Birch after obtaining a number of internal documents.

The revelation comes as Health Minister Greg Hunt was forced to extend the My Health Record opt- out period after a compromise deal with the Senate crossbench and a last-minute meltdown of the website left thousands of Australians struggling to meet the original deadline. 

Since April 2016, Mr Birch has been ADHA chairman with oversight of My HealthRecord, the online summary of key health information of millions of Australians. Documents from the ADHA, released under freedom of information laws, show Mr Birch registered his work for Serco in November 2017, but the relationship was never publicly declared.

After Fairfax Media submitted questions last week on whether the relationship posed a conflict of interest, Mr Birch quit the advisory role.

Serco has won a number of multibillion-dollar government contracts to privately run - and in some cases deliver healthcare in - some of Australia's prisons, hospitals and detention centres.

The ability of Serco to navigate the controversial area of digital health records would be invaluable to any future expansion plans.

A spokeswoman for federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said all board members had declared their interests.

"Board members do not have access to system operations, and board members cannot be present while a matter is being considered at a board meeting in which the member has an interest," she said.

Lisa Parker, a public health ethics expert at University of Sydney, said the public had been asked to trust the agency is acting in its best interests. She said they should make public any information relevant to that trust…..

The register also shows Mr Birch knows the chief executive of start-up Personify Care, Ken Saman, and has been giving him advice since August last year. The software company recently released "Personify Connect", a product that provides hospitals with "seamless integration" of its original patient monitoring platform with My Health Record.

Despite being scheduled to speak at a "Personify Care breakfast seminar" later this year, Mr Birch has never publicly declared this interest. Mr Birch is also chairman of another start-up called Clevertar that allows businesses to create "virtual agents" and offer "personalised healthcare support, delivered at scale". This relationship is on the public record. 

Public sector ethics expert Richard Mulgan, from Australian National University, said the chairman should submit to a higher standard than ordinary board members and distance himself from anything suggesting a conflict of interest.

He said perception was just as important as reality and the public, not the people involved, was the best judge of whether there was a problem.

"The personal interests register must be published," he said.

"The fact they haven't can only lead to the perception there are conflicts of which they are ashamed."

Mr Birch, Personify Care and Clevertar did not respond to Fairfax Media's questions.

A Serco spokesman confirmed the company met with Mr Birch "occasionally ... over the past 12 months regarding business management", but did not answer whether it paid him.......

The Courier Mail, 15 November 2018, p.4:

Your dietitian, dentist, podiatrist, occupational therapist or optometrist will be able to see if have a sexually transmitted disease or an addiction unless you set access controls to My Health ­Record.

Major new privacy concerns emerged after the Federal Government was yesterday forced into an embarrassing call to delay the rollout.

People trying to access the controversial My Health Record hotline and computer portal experienced major delays during a rush to opt out before the system was rolled out tomorrow.

Health Minister Greg Hunt was forced to delay the opt out period until January 31 after pressure from health groups and crossbench senators.

The Australian Medical Ass­ociation was the only major health group not calling for a delay.

The vast majority of groups were concerned the record would come into ­effect before key privacy and secu­rity upgrades had been passed by ­Parliament. AMA president Dr Tony Bartone denied its position was related to his need to keep the Health Minister onside while he negotiated key reforms to general practice care.