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Google hits back at Tory NHS records slur

Google has taken aim at David Davis, after the Conservative MP said NHS records should not be held with the firm.

By Nicole Kobie, 28 Jul 2009 at 11:06

Google is fighting back against claims it shouldn't be allowed to hold public health records.

Yesterday, Conservative MP David Davis argued in an article in the Times newspaper against his own party’s plans to use Google Health to manage NHS records, calling the idea “mad” and telling Google to stay away.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, responded in a blog post, saying the search giant was “surprised and disappointed” by the “vitriolic column”.

Fleishcer said Davis’ column was “riddled with misleading statements,” saying the politician didn’t bother to check his facts before launching his “extraordinary attack.”

“The important work of education is made more difficult by polemicists who abuse the truth,” Fleischer said. “We are happy to debate our privacy record or policies anytime, but we'd rather that debate was based on fact not fiction.”

Fleischer added that the service in question - Google Health - isn’t even available in the UK. It’s limited to the US, and Google isn’t planning on bringing it to other markets anytime soon.

Fleishcer also responded to Davis' comments on Google’s approach to personal privacy – an issue it is frequently criticised over – defending its Street View photo mapping service and pointing out that the firm got permission from the Information Commissioner before launching in the UK.

Google was forced to again defend what Davis called the “amoral deal” with China – the firm’s agreement to censor search according to the government’s wishes.

"As we said when we launched Google.cn, it wasn't a step we took lightly, but we felt we were doing it for the right reasons - to bring more information to more people,” Fleischer wrote. “Where Chinese regulations require us to remove sensitive information from our search results we disclose this to users - which is not standard practice in China.”

However, the main thrust of Davis’ argument against using Google for public records was that the search firm makes its cash by “exploiting customers’ private data” – something he felt shouldn’t happen with sensitive health records.

“Google makes the vast majority of its revenue by providing users with free services and serving ads targeted to what the user has searched for or has read. This does not involve selling user data or exposing it in any way,” Fleischer said.

“If managed and used responsibly, the free services Google offers can be of tremendous civic benefit,” he added, citing previous work done by the firm to help track flu trends and assist after natural disasters.

With Google Health, the firm does not sell off an individual's data, but does aggregate it to look for trends.

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Why not trust local trusts with patient records?

The public spat between David Davis and Google about the merits of the Conservative Party's earlier proposals that personal health records could be held in the cloud highlights both the desire from patients for greater visibility of their data but also the importance of finding a trusted host for this most personal information. It should also point the debate to an exciting middle ground where the NHS remains the guardian of patient records but is given a remit to make records available to patients.

The NHS 'Spine' system goes some way towards this by letting patients decide who can and cannot see their records but does not provide patient access to the record itself. The argument goes that information within patient records could be easily misinterpreted by patients and needs interpreting by a medical expert. Surely something that is more likely in a privately-owned system that is not overseen by health professionals. Perhaps a solution would be a summary record that is abstracted from the detailed record and provides easy-to-digest, topline information, based on agreed terminology, to the patient?

More importantly, this revolution could and should happen at a local level. Individual NHS Trusts already have investments in patient record and appointment booking systems and relationships with / and the trust of local citizens. Why not use the web to enable individual trusts to provide secure access to records for other trusts and patients themselves, rather than duplicating everything centrally or handing everything over to a private service provider? This needn't mean new systems for each and every NHS Trust, far from it! In the time that the NPfIT has been running, web technologies have developed to the point where a web front-end can be quickly and cost-effectively developed and overlaid onto existing systems.

Surely making local trusts the guardian of patient records offers the best of both worlds? A trusted and responsible guardian that the public can identify with and an opportunity to build further trust at a local level, without the huge costs and duplications of a centralised system would be a far better use of public funding.

Simon Skillen, health practice manager, Adobe UK

By Simon_Skillen on Friday Aug 7