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Paging Dr. Google: How the Tech Giant Is Laying Claim to Health Data

103 points by Bostonian 7y ago

utopian3 7y ago
Article is paywalled. If someone can see it: is the premise that Google is harvesting patient data for their own AI/ML healthcare projects' benefit? Or is this just cloud storage (Cerner putting objects in a bucket)? Or both...
- jnetterf 7y ago
  Cerner just wanted cloud storage. Google gave them a good offer, seemingly to harvest patient data for their own project. You can use archive.is to read some paywalled content: http://archive.is/RcG5b http://archive.is/RcG5b
  - gordon_freeman 7y ago
    As per the article: And then Cerner got skeptical of Google's real intent with its Cloud business model and went with AWS instead.
- 3xblah 7y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20200111193123/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/paging-dr-google-how-the-tech-giant-is-laying-claim-to-health-data-11578719700 https://web.archive.org/web/20200111193123/https://www.wsj.c... To remove AMP cruft: curl http://web.archive.org/web/20200111193123/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/paging-dr-google-how-the-tech-giant-is-laying-claim-to-health-data-11578719700 \ | sed -n '/./{/<p>By<.p>/,/<\/div>/p;/<title>/,/<\/title>/p;};/<p>By/!{/<p>/p;};/=.sub-head/p;/./{/<h1 /,/<.h1>/p;}' > a.html firefox file://a.html
hi5eyes 7y ago
how long until google shuts down their health service apps
- outside1234 7y ago
  probably right after GCP
Despegar 7y ago
>As Google has moved to expand its data collection, some potential partners have been put off by what they viewed as the company’s aggressive maneuvers to acquire data without providing enough information on how it would be used. >Google pushed one medical-data manager not to share data with other companies, according to a person familiar with the pitch. >As part of its huge offer for Cerner, whose software is embedded in doctors’ offices in 30 countries, Google used its size to its advantage. Google Cloud executives offered that other arms of the conglomerate would buy unspecified other services from Cerner, people familiar with the matter say. >Cerner ultimately accepted a less generous offer from Amazon, in part because the company decided Amazon was more trustworthy on security, according to one of these people. >Existing players in the health-care data market also fear that the tech giant will gain too much power in their industry. Some hospital and technology executives say they declined deals with Google lest it become a future competitor. >“We could never pin down Google on what their true business model was,” says a Cerner executive involved in the discussions. It seems like Google is using GCP as a venus fly trap and Cerner was right to avoid them. The lure is cheap bog standard cloud services, but only if you have a more all-encompassing partnership where your data helps them develop other Google products. >Reiterating what Google has told lawmakers and industry executives in private meetings over the past two months, Dr. Feinberg says he operates on a personal directive from Mr. Schmidt: “Don’t worry about making money.” This quote is extremely telling in my opinion, and it's just classic Google. The most generous interpretation of this is that Google has altruistic motivations to make advances in health and they shouldn't worry about how to monetize whatever they build. That of course is completely absurd and extremely dangerous because that is exactly how Google slides into evil (evil is banal). The less generous interpretation is that Dr. Feinberg is only there to provide a sheen of health industry credibility (key opinion leader) and he has no actual ownership of Google's health business at all. And judging by this paragraph, I'm leaning to the latter: >Outcry over the Ascension deal, including a federal inquiry and objections from patients, shocked executives inside Google, and opened fissures in its top ranks over how to proceed, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The head of Google Health, Dr. Feinberg, pushed to tell the public more about his division’s operations, but met resistance from longtime staffers who cite the company’s tradition of keeping potential new products under wraps.
- 7y ago
sharcerer 7y ago
Result of not focussing on trust enough. Google is going to have more of this problem. Google really has a problem understanding the compound effects of trust and perception and dealing with it. By now, they should have taken some concrete privacy enhancing steps which might be made for short-term but good for long term trust, as usage of GCP, G Suite, AR will depend a lot on their trust factor. Sundar is really coming off as weak in this regard.
- deadmutex 7y ago
  I think they have taken privacy enhancing steps, though public perception isn't easy to change. A lot of people (including HN users) still mistakenly think that Google sells user data, or medical history is being used for ads, etc. Disclosure: I work at Google, but my opinion is my own.
  - sharcerer 7y ago
    Yeah. I know they have, enhancing Permissions in Android, making data deletion etc more visible. And I don't think they sell data. Personally, as a student I think they've provided incredible positive value to my life. But I wonder how GCP, Google Health will gain big customers because Google has clearly abused their power in certain areas.
  - bitL 7y ago
    That might be true now, but who knows where your current employer will be in 10 years and if they by then even remotely match your current values. We are already seeing cracks forming and it makes difficult to trust them with our most sensitive data. It was easier 10-15 years ago, not so much these days.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      I honestly don't get this: the reverence with which Google treats user data has only increased over time. What gives you the opposite impression?
rvz 7y ago
> Cerner ultimately accepted a less generous offer from Amazon, in part because the company decided Amazon was more trustworthy on security, according to one of these people. Well I don't know if even going with Amazon would be any better than going with Google since both of them will be prominent players in healthcare technology anytime soon. But it is more than clear that as Google obtains more health data via hospitals contracts, GCP customers, etc this helps their deep-learning systems learn more about you and despite releasing interesting papers about their achievements, they have closed up some of their methods which limits reproducible science and research. Think very carefully about the sensitivity of this health data. Do we really want the likes of Google and Amazon analyzing this data for commercial purposes and later getting away with it? I neither trust that Amazon or Google will act in the best interests of whats good for healthcare, but I guess Cerner chose the lesser of two evils and went with a weaker devil.
rb808 7y ago
I can't read it but sounds like a good thing. Its always a waste to see our smartest developers working on social media or advertising. Hopefully the teams at Google can improve our healthcare which would be one of the most rewarding things they could work on.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  It would be a shame if that data ended up being used for advertising, though.
  - deadmutex 7y ago
    From the article: "The company says its intentions in health are unconnected with its advertising business". I posted this exact comment elsewhere in the thread. You can search for a discussion on this page around it.
    - coding123 7y ago
      Don't have to believe it.
      - shadowgovt 7y ago
        But we'll believe the rest of the article? By what criteria do we pick and choose?
        Ericson2314 7y ago
        You can believe all of it. Intensions are fickle; they don't even claim to be permanent.
        OnlineGladiator 7y ago
        Why would you ever believe a giant corporation would choose not to monetize an insanely valuable asset just because they said so?
        7y ago
shrike 7y ago
Assuming Google has access to patient PII would this data be covered by the CCPA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac...)? I couldn't find a Health Data option at https://takeout.google.com https://takeout.google.com.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  De-anonymzed (health) data likely isn't covered by HIPAA, and with a few still generic data points likely associated with the health data, such as health, gender, age, and location -- you could work backwards to reach an identity. There's likely a loophole for whole security of health data thing.
  - pgodzin 7y ago
    Did you mean de-identified instead of de-anonymzed?
    - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
      I meant anonymized can easily become de-anonymized.
- shreyshrey 7y ago
  ASFAIK, CCPA doesn’t cover data that comes under HIPAA Regulations. Check 1798.145. Section 3 https://hq.services/blog/ccpa-full-text-with-amendments/ https://hq.services/blog/ccpa-full-text-with-amendments/
drevil-v2 7y ago
I find it disingenuous that the article refers to Google as a “tech giant”. The implications are far more sinister if instead it was referred to as “advertising giant” as advertising is what is what is driving Google to acquire this data. Call it for what it is.
- deadmutex 7y ago
  From the article: "The company says its intentions in health are unconnected with its advertising business".
  - obmelvin 7y ago
    Exactly. There is so much money to be made from healthcare service, it is a market & revenue stream totally separate from advertising, and it can provide great value to many people. There are things one could be critical of regarding their acquisition of data, etc. but I don't think it is in Google's best interest to use the data for advertising.
    - allovernow 7y ago
      Why would you trust a literal corporate mouthpiece? You think Zuckerberg cares about your privacy too? No way in hell Google isn't going to use this for advertisement. It's exactly the kind of huge free money that drives everyone else to collect data totally unrelated to their core business. Even if the intentions are benign now, there's no reason to trust they'll be so later, based on Google's track record and the typical tech mindset. Just imagine the kind of profiles you could build on people with medical data. Beyond targeted drug advertisement, medical devices, and the like, you know which people are sedentary, which play sports, who probably smokes, and I'd bet good money there are correlations between certain conditions and shopping habits, religious preference, and even political preferences. Just begging to be clustered with the latest hot neural net.
      - banads 7y ago
        >you know which people are sedentary, which play sports, who probably smokes, and I'd bet good money there are correlations between certain conditions and shopping habits, religious preference, and even political preferences. They could already do this with data from Android, Chrome, Google, Maps, or Youtube.
bionhoward 7y ago
I can’t believe Google Cloud has no Serverless graph db... would be perfect for health applications
jnordwick 7y ago
>>> Yet he is reluctant to allow people to opt out of Google’s core health-search tool. He likens that to a physician knowingly offering substandard care, he says. >>> “If you believe me that all we are doing is organizing that information to make it easier for your doctor, I’m going to get a little paternalistic here: I’m never going to let that get opted out,” Dr. Feinberg says. “It’s going to screw up your treatment. We’re not going to be able to take care of you.” Planet Money had an interview with Dr. Feinberg, the head of the Google health initiative. He was asked about people potentially opting out. His response was extremely paternalistic. He said that he views everybody in the system as his patients, and he thinks this data aggregation and analysis from Google will improve care. So as "our" doctor he cannot morally allow any of his his patients to withdraw themselves from the program because, to him, that would be akin to giving you inferior care. So this guy gets to unilaterally appoint himself as our doctor? I certainly didn't hire him. >>> He boasts about his $5 Wal-Mart fleece jacket, and is an astrology enthusiast. “I’m positive,” Dr. Feinberg says to a reporter good naturedly, if inaccurately, “you’re Sagittarius.” He's also heavily into astrology and was asking the interviewer his sign and trying to guess it. I certainly would never hire a doctor that was into astrology. How can I fire this guy? How TF do you become a doctor that believes in astrology?
- titzer 7y ago
  "Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." This is how you appoint yourself lord of all things.
- carapace 7y ago
  > Planet Money had an interview with Dr. Feinberg Got a link?
  - jnordwick 7y ago
    I can't find it, sorry.
    - carapace 7y ago
neuro_image3 7y ago
Well we've given google everything else, we may as well give them all our healthcare information too. So glad our corporate surveillance masters are teaming up to infiltrate every aspect of our existence.
- jocoda 7y ago
  Rather say that google _took_ everything else. Few realized the value of what was up for grabs at the time but by making life easy for web developers with g-analytics google created a firehose of user data. By using g-analytics we gave the web away. Where is this firehose of health data is going to lead to?

103 points by Bostonian 7y ago

Article is paywalled. If someone can see it: is the premise that Google is harvesting patient data for their own AI/ML healthcare projects' benefit? Or is this just cloud storage (Cerner putting objects in a bucket)? Or both...

jnetterf 7y ago
Cerner just wanted cloud storage. Google gave them a good offer, seemingly to harvest patient data for their own project. You can use archive.is to read some paywalled content: http://archive.is/RcG5b http://archive.is/RcG5b
- gordon_freeman 7y ago
  As per the article: And then Cerner got skeptical of Google's real intent with its Cloud business model and went with AWS instead.
3xblah 7y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20200111193123/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/paging-dr-google-how-the-tech-giant-is-laying-claim-to-health-data-11578719700 https://web.archive.org/web/20200111193123/https://www.wsj.c... To remove AMP cruft: curl http://web.archive.org/web/20200111193123/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/paging-dr-google-how-the-tech-giant-is-laying-claim-to-health-data-11578719700 \ | sed -n '/./{/<p>By<.p>/,/<\/div>/p;/<title>/,/<\/title>/p;};/<p>By/!{/<p>/p;};/=.sub-head/p;/./{/<h1 /,/<.h1>/p;}' > a.html firefox file://a.html

hi5eyes 7y ago

how long until google shuts down their health service apps

outside1234 7y ago
probably right after GCP

Despegar 7y ago

>As Google has moved to expand its data collection, some potential partners have been put off by what they viewed as the company’s aggressive maneuvers to acquire data without providing enough information on how it would be used. >Google pushed one medical-data manager not to share data with other companies, according to a person familiar with the pitch. >As part of its huge offer for Cerner, whose software is embedded in doctors’ offices in 30 countries, Google used its size to its advantage. Google Cloud executives offered that other arms of the conglomerate would buy unspecified other services from Cerner, people familiar with the matter say. >Cerner ultimately accepted a less generous offer from Amazon, in part because the company decided Amazon was more trustworthy on security, according to one of these people. >Existing players in the health-care data market also fear that the tech giant will gain too much power in their industry. Some hospital and technology executives say they declined deals with Google lest it become a future competitor. >“We could never pin down Google on what their true business model was,” says a Cerner executive involved in the discussions. It seems like Google is using GCP as a venus fly trap and Cerner was right to avoid them. The lure is cheap bog standard cloud services, but only if you have a more all-encompassing partnership where your data helps them develop other Google products. >Reiterating what Google has told lawmakers and industry executives in private meetings over the past two months, Dr. Feinberg says he operates on a personal directive from Mr. Schmidt: “Don’t worry about making money.” This quote is extremely telling in my opinion, and it's just classic Google. The most generous interpretation of this is that Google has altruistic motivations to make advances in health and they shouldn't worry about how to monetize whatever they build. That of course is completely absurd and extremely dangerous because that is exactly how Google slides into evil (evil is banal). The less generous interpretation is that Dr. Feinberg is only there to provide a sheen of health industry credibility (key opinion leader) and he has no actual ownership of Google's health business at all. And judging by this paragraph, I'm leaning to the latter: >Outcry over the Ascension deal, including a federal inquiry and objections from patients, shocked executives inside Google, and opened fissures in its top ranks over how to proceed, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The head of Google Health, Dr. Feinberg, pushed to tell the public more about his division’s operations, but met resistance from longtime staffers who cite the company’s tradition of keeping potential new products under wraps.

7y ago

sharcerer 7y ago

Result of not focussing on trust enough. Google is going to have more of this problem. Google really has a problem understanding the compound effects of trust and perception and dealing with it. By now, they should have taken some concrete privacy enhancing steps which might be made for short-term but good for long term trust, as usage of GCP, G Suite, AR will depend a lot on their trust factor. Sundar is really coming off as weak in this regard.

deadmutex 7y ago
I think they have taken privacy enhancing steps, though public perception isn't easy to change. A lot of people (including HN users) still mistakenly think that Google sells user data, or medical history is being used for ads, etc. Disclosure: I work at Google, but my opinion is my own.
- sharcerer 7y ago
  Yeah. I know they have, enhancing Permissions in Android, making data deletion etc more visible. And I don't think they sell data. Personally, as a student I think they've provided incredible positive value to my life. But I wonder how GCP, Google Health will gain big customers because Google has clearly abused their power in certain areas.
- bitL 7y ago
  That might be true now, but who knows where your current employer will be in 10 years and if they by then even remotely match your current values. We are already seeing cracks forming and it makes difficult to trust them with our most sensitive data. It was easier 10-15 years ago, not so much these days.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    I honestly don't get this: the reverence with which Google treats user data has only increased over time. What gives you the opposite impression?

rvz 7y ago

> Cerner ultimately accepted a less generous offer from Amazon, in part because the company decided Amazon was more trustworthy on security, according to one of these people. Well I don't know if even going with Amazon would be any better than going with Google since both of them will be prominent players in healthcare technology anytime soon. But it is more than clear that as Google obtains more health data via hospitals contracts, GCP customers, etc this helps their deep-learning systems learn more about you and despite releasing interesting papers about their achievements, they have closed up some of their methods which limits reproducible science and research. Think very carefully about the sensitivity of this health data. Do we really want the likes of Google and Amazon analyzing this data for commercial purposes and later getting away with it? I neither trust that Amazon or Google will act in the best interests of whats good for healthcare, but I guess Cerner chose the lesser of two evils and went with a weaker devil.

rb808 7y ago

I can't read it but sounds like a good thing. Its always a waste to see our smartest developers working on social media or advertising. Hopefully the teams at Google can improve our healthcare which would be one of the most rewarding things they could work on.

saagarjha 7y ago
It would be a shame if that data ended up being used for advertising, though.
- deadmutex 7y ago
  From the article: "The company says its intentions in health are unconnected with its advertising business". I posted this exact comment elsewhere in the thread. You can search for a discussion on this page around it.
  - coding123 7y ago
    Don't have to believe it.
    - shadowgovt 7y ago
      But we'll believe the rest of the article? By what criteria do we pick and choose?
      - Ericson2314 7y ago
        You can believe all of it. Intensions are fickle; they don't even claim to be permanent.
      - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
        Why would you ever believe a giant corporation would choose not to monetize an insanely valuable asset just because they said so?
      - 7y ago

shrike 7y ago

Assuming Google has access to patient PII would this data be covered by the CCPA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac...)? I couldn't find a Health Data option at https://takeout.google.com https://takeout.google.com.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
De-anonymzed (health) data likely isn't covered by HIPAA, and with a few still generic data points likely associated with the health data, such as health, gender, age, and location -- you could work backwards to reach an identity. There's likely a loophole for whole security of health data thing.
- pgodzin 7y ago
  Did you mean de-identified instead of de-anonymzed?
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    I meant anonymized can easily become de-anonymized.
shreyshrey 7y ago
ASFAIK, CCPA doesn’t cover data that comes under HIPAA Regulations. Check 1798.145. Section 3 https://hq.services/blog/ccpa-full-text-with-amendments/ https://hq.services/blog/ccpa-full-text-with-amendments/

drevil-v2 7y ago

I find it disingenuous that the article refers to Google as a “tech giant”. The implications are far more sinister if instead it was referred to as “advertising giant” as advertising is what is what is driving Google to acquire this data. Call it for what it is.

deadmutex 7y ago
From the article: "The company says its intentions in health are unconnected with its advertising business".
- obmelvin 7y ago
  Exactly. There is so much money to be made from healthcare service, it is a market & revenue stream totally separate from advertising, and it can provide great value to many people. There are things one could be critical of regarding their acquisition of data, etc. but I don't think it is in Google's best interest to use the data for advertising.
  - allovernow 7y ago
    Why would you trust a literal corporate mouthpiece? You think Zuckerberg cares about your privacy too? No way in hell Google isn't going to use this for advertisement. It's exactly the kind of huge free money that drives everyone else to collect data totally unrelated to their core business. Even if the intentions are benign now, there's no reason to trust they'll be so later, based on Google's track record and the typical tech mindset. Just imagine the kind of profiles you could build on people with medical data. Beyond targeted drug advertisement, medical devices, and the like, you know which people are sedentary, which play sports, who probably smokes, and I'd bet good money there are correlations between certain conditions and shopping habits, religious preference, and even political preferences. Just begging to be clustered with the latest hot neural net.
    - banads 7y ago
      >you know which people are sedentary, which play sports, who probably smokes, and I'd bet good money there are correlations between certain conditions and shopping habits, religious preference, and even political preferences. They could already do this with data from Android, Chrome, Google, Maps, or Youtube.

bionhoward 7y ago

I can’t believe Google Cloud has no Serverless graph db... would be perfect for health applications

jnordwick 7y ago

>>> Yet he is reluctant to allow people to opt out of Google’s core health-search tool. He likens that to a physician knowingly offering substandard care, he says. >>> “If you believe me that all we are doing is organizing that information to make it easier for your doctor, I’m going to get a little paternalistic here: I’m never going to let that get opted out,” Dr. Feinberg says. “It’s going to screw up your treatment. We’re not going to be able to take care of you.” Planet Money had an interview with Dr. Feinberg, the head of the Google health initiative. He was asked about people potentially opting out. His response was extremely paternalistic. He said that he views everybody in the system as his patients, and he thinks this data aggregation and analysis from Google will improve care. So as "our" doctor he cannot morally allow any of his his patients to withdraw themselves from the program because, to him, that would be akin to giving you inferior care. So this guy gets to unilaterally appoint himself as our doctor? I certainly didn't hire him. >>> He boasts about his $5 Wal-Mart fleece jacket, and is an astrology enthusiast. “I’m positive,” Dr. Feinberg says to a reporter good naturedly, if inaccurately, “you’re Sagittarius.” He's also heavily into astrology and was asking the interviewer his sign and trying to guess it. I certainly would never hire a doctor that was into astrology. How can I fire this guy? How TF do you become a doctor that believes in astrology?

titzer 7y ago
"Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." This is how you appoint yourself lord of all things.
carapace 7y ago
> Planet Money had an interview with Dr. Feinberg Got a link?
- jnordwick 7y ago
  I can't find it, sorry.
  - carapace 7y ago

neuro_image3 7y ago

Well we've given google everything else, we may as well give them all our healthcare information too. So glad our corporate surveillance masters are teaming up to infiltrate every aspect of our existence.

jocoda 7y ago
Rather say that google _took_ everything else. Few realized the value of what was up for grabs at the time but by making life easy for web developers with g-analytics google created a firehose of user data. By using g-analytics we gave the web away. Where is this firehose of health data is going to lead to?