6 ms·

What is actually happening here? A lot of rhetoric about the "Transfer of data" etc, but other times this just reads like a Google Cloud Infrastructure play, wi

What is actually happening here? A lot of rhetoric about the "Transfer of data" etc, but other times this just reads like a Google Cloud Infrastructure play, with some consulting on top. Also - The deal was only just signed, e.g. the transfer hasn't happened yet? There's a lot of hearsay in all of this reporting...

umeshunni 7y ago
Seems like a lot of fake news over a cloud storage deal https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/our-partnership-with-ascension?mod=article_inline https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/our...
- dimator 7y ago
  Well, that seems a lot less sensational than the article. Covers HIPAA as well.
  - amsully 7y ago
    Without reading the Business Association Agreement it is hard to determine if Google has 'Acceptable Use' of healthcare data. Storing in the cloud is one thing, allowing a Business Associate to siphon that data for other use is another.
- excalibur 7y ago
  This is not "fake news" at all. This is the same factual event covered with a different spin. Use of the term "fake news" to describe reporting that is merely slanted in a direction you don't like--rather than presenting demonstrably false information as fact--is completely unwarranted, and is doing terrible damage to our social institutions.
  - chooseaname 7y ago
    Thank you for stating this so aptly and concisely. People are throwing "fake news" around for anything and everything they don't agree with. It really is making it difficult to have a reasoned discussion with people when they just dismiss something so generally.
  - izacus 7y ago
    This is a TEXTBOOK case of fake news - a newspaper owned by Google competitor spinning purchase of space on encrypted Cloud Storage and Google Apps productivity suite as a big medical data mining attempt by Google to drive a political agenda. There are obvious concerns around data security here, but the article is very heavily distorting facts to drive outrage.
    - excalibur 7y ago
      No, it really isn't. The Guardian article is factually reporting on what the "whistleblower" told them, both via the video and in a separate interview. They did not fabricate any details, or make any claims they knew to be false. They made a cursory attempt to present the other side of the story. Sensationalized, yes. Slanted, yes. But not fake.
    - mattkevan 7y ago
      Also the Guardian isn’t owned by a Google competitor - it’s owned by the Scott Trust, an organisation set up specifically to maintain the paper’s editorial independence. They have viewpoints which include a distrust of very powerful global corporations, and one you may or may not agree with - but it’s nowhere near ‘fake news’. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited
- bogwog 7y ago
  Did you even read the article you linked to? > What is the work we’re doing with Ascension? Back in July, on our Q2 earnings call, we announced “Google Cloud’s AI and ML solutions are helping healthcare organizations like Ascension improve the healthcare experience and outcomes. "AI and ML solutions" sounds like a lot more than just data storage. They have complete access to the entire database of names, addresses, medical history, etc. and are playing with it to develop products to later sell to other healthcare providers. Without the knowledge or consent of the patients. Also in that article: > under this arrangement, Ascension’s data cannot be used for any other purpose than for providing these services we’re offering under the agreement, and patient data cannot and will not be combined with any Google consumer data. If I had a nickel for every time a tech giant outright lied about how they handle data, I'd be able to afford SV rent.
  - vineyardmike 7y ago
    > If I had a nickel for every time a tech giant outright lied about how they handle data, I'd be able to afford SV rent. Maybe we can get them to pay when they lie?
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > AI and ML solutions" sounds like a lot more than just data storage. Everyone in the space, from providers (well, the ones big enough to) to insurers (essentially all of which are big enough to), is looking at AI and ML solutions for clinical, fraud detection, or other purposes, whether in house, or via Business Associates, or (probably most commonly for large orgs) a combination, and much of that involves BAs with cloud firms that also provide AI/ML solutions like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. From everything I've seen, Amazon and Microsoft are getting a lot more of that business than Google, because of their established relationships and stronger enterprise sales.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  It's not just a cloud storage deal. The medical data is being used by Google for research purposes (training AI, apparently). Who knows what else Google will do with it now or in the future? The real problem, though, is that this data was transferred without even notifying patients, let alone getting their consent.
briffle 7y ago
Note this key part: Google has entered into similar partnerships on a much smaller scale with clients such as the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine. But in that case all the data handed over to the search giant was encrypted, with keys being held only on the medical side. It sounds like they are migrating to Google Cloud for some of their infrastructure.. and someone (and the paper) are sure trying to raise a stink about it. its misleading in a few spots, but not quite lying, hard to tell if its intentional, or technical incompetence. For example, all storage in google cloud is encrypted, and the keys are rotated every 24 hours by default. There is an audit log you can see, any time anyone at google touches your data. (very, very few people can actually access the keys)
mr_toad 7y ago
Personalised medicine is not about cloud services. It’s about using ML to target healthcare services, for example: predicting patient readmission risk. It’s pretty important, potentially life saving, and can also save millions. Honesty it’s one of the areas where (in the right hands) I think the benefits of collecting large amounts of data for targeting services to people is justified. Is Google ‘the right hands’? That’s probably worth debating.

umeshunni 7y ago

Seems like a lot of fake news over a cloud storage deal https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/our-partnership-with-ascension?mod=article_inline https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/inside-google-cloud/our...

dimator 7y ago
Well, that seems a lot less sensational than the article. Covers HIPAA as well.
- amsully 7y ago
  Without reading the Business Association Agreement it is hard to determine if Google has 'Acceptable Use' of healthcare data. Storing in the cloud is one thing, allowing a Business Associate to siphon that data for other use is another.
excalibur 7y ago
This is not "fake news" at all. This is the same factual event covered with a different spin. Use of the term "fake news" to describe reporting that is merely slanted in a direction you don't like--rather than presenting demonstrably false information as fact--is completely unwarranted, and is doing terrible damage to our social institutions.
- chooseaname 7y ago
  Thank you for stating this so aptly and concisely. People are throwing "fake news" around for anything and everything they don't agree with. It really is making it difficult to have a reasoned discussion with people when they just dismiss something so generally.
- izacus 7y ago
  This is a TEXTBOOK case of fake news - a newspaper owned by Google competitor spinning purchase of space on encrypted Cloud Storage and Google Apps productivity suite as a big medical data mining attempt by Google to drive a political agenda. There are obvious concerns around data security here, but the article is very heavily distorting facts to drive outrage.
  - excalibur 7y ago
    No, it really isn't. The Guardian article is factually reporting on what the "whistleblower" told them, both via the video and in a separate interview. They did not fabricate any details, or make any claims they knew to be false. They made a cursory attempt to present the other side of the story. Sensationalized, yes. Slanted, yes. But not fake.
  - mattkevan 7y ago
    Also the Guardian isn’t owned by a Google competitor - it’s owned by the Scott Trust, an organisation set up specifically to maintain the paper’s editorial independence. They have viewpoints which include a distrust of very powerful global corporations, and one you may or may not agree with - but it’s nowhere near ‘fake news’. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited
bogwog 7y ago
Did you even read the article you linked to? > What is the work we’re doing with Ascension? Back in July, on our Q2 earnings call, we announced “Google Cloud’s AI and ML solutions are helping healthcare organizations like Ascension improve the healthcare experience and outcomes. "AI and ML solutions" sounds like a lot more than just data storage. They have complete access to the entire database of names, addresses, medical history, etc. and are playing with it to develop products to later sell to other healthcare providers. Without the knowledge or consent of the patients. Also in that article: > under this arrangement, Ascension’s data cannot be used for any other purpose than for providing these services we’re offering under the agreement, and patient data cannot and will not be combined with any Google consumer data. If I had a nickel for every time a tech giant outright lied about how they handle data, I'd be able to afford SV rent.
- vineyardmike 7y ago
  > If I had a nickel for every time a tech giant outright lied about how they handle data, I'd be able to afford SV rent. Maybe we can get them to pay when they lie?
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > AI and ML solutions" sounds like a lot more than just data storage. Everyone in the space, from providers (well, the ones big enough to) to insurers (essentially all of which are big enough to), is looking at AI and ML solutions for clinical, fraud detection, or other purposes, whether in house, or via Business Associates, or (probably most commonly for large orgs) a combination, and much of that involves BAs with cloud firms that also provide AI/ML solutions like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. From everything I've seen, Amazon and Microsoft are getting a lot more of that business than Google, because of their established relationships and stronger enterprise sales.
JohnFen 7y ago
It's not just a cloud storage deal. The medical data is being used by Google for research purposes (training AI, apparently). Who knows what else Google will do with it now or in the future? The real problem, though, is that this data was transferred without even notifying patients, let alone getting their consent.

briffle 7y ago

Note this key part: Google has entered into similar partnerships on a much smaller scale with clients such as the Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine. But in that case all the data handed over to the search giant was encrypted, with keys being held only on the medical side. It sounds like they are migrating to Google Cloud for some of their infrastructure.. and someone (and the paper) are sure trying to raise a stink about it. its misleading in a few spots, but not quite lying, hard to tell if its intentional, or technical incompetence. For example, all storage in google cloud is encrypted, and the keys are rotated every 24 hours by default. There is an audit log you can see, any time anyone at google touches your data. (very, very few people can actually access the keys)

mr_toad 7y ago

Personalised medicine is not about cloud services. It’s about using ML to target healthcare services, for example: predicting patient readmission risk. It’s pretty important, potentially life saving, and can also save millions. Honesty it’s one of the areas where (in the right hands) I think the benefits of collecting large amounts of data for targeting services to people is justified. Is Google ‘the right hands’? That’s probably worth debating.