DeepMind Health must be transparent to gain public trust, review finds

An independent review of Google-owned DeepMind Health has found that as privacy concerns are heightened, the company must assure the public that their data is safe.

The review, conducted by an independent panel set up to scrutinise the company, said DeepMind must provide more transparency to gain public trust.  

The company has previously come under fire for its NHS data-sharing deal, and the review said it still had room for improvement. 

One of the key issues continues to be around data, particularly in the current climate, where “the tide of public opinion has turned strongly against the tech giants”, the review said.

It added that, in the light of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, it is “hardly surprising that the public should question the motivations of a company so closely linked to Google as DeepMind Health”.

“Furthermore, DeepMind Health works with medical information, something that is regarded as deeply personal and therefore attracts greater scrutiny,” the review said.

It pointed out that the public needs reassurance about the company’s business model, and that if it involves selling data, “either in a de-personalised form or in a raw form”, there would be “considerable sensitivity”.

“There would also be very significant concerns if any of the data were used to tune advertising,” it said.

The review panel added that as far as it is aware, none of these options are “envisaged or considered as desirable revenue sources” by DeepMind Health.

“Alternatively, it is possible that DeepMind Health is not intended to make money,” the review said. “It could be thought of as a not-for-profit, whose purpose is building the brand for DeepMind or Alphabet, or driving the use of other Google services, for instance cloud storage, rather than making money. It could even be envisaged as a charitably-minded venture driven by an altruistic desire to improve health.”

The review added that DeepMind should clearly state its intentions to the public, to avoid the public assuming that its work is purely driven by profit.

DeepMind was bought by Google in 2014, which in turn is owned by Alphabet, and the review said its relationship with its parent company also needs clarity.

DeepMind says on its website that data will never be connected to Google accounts or services, but the review panel said that is not clear enough.

It said that this statement “might be taken to mean that, for example, DeepMind Health would only use non-Google cloud services”, adding that one of its projects with Cancer Research UK states that it will indeed use a Google cloud service.

The review added that without a transparent business model, people are likely to suspect a hidden agenda, and that DeepMind also needs to specify how it indents do work with other parts of Alphabet and what data “could ever be transferred to them”.

Responding to the independent review, DeepMind said it is currently developing its longer-term business model and will share its ideas once they have progressed further.

“Rather than charging for the early stages of our work, our first priority has been to prove that our technologies can help improve patient care and reduce costs,” said DeepMind. “We believe that our business model should flow from the positive impact we create, and will continue to explore outcomes-based elements so that costs are at least in part related to the benefits we deliver.”