Google Defeats UK Privacy Lawsuit Over Medical Data Deal

Google on Wednesday defeated an attempt in a London court to revive a lawsuit brought by a hospital patient on behalf of 1.6 million people over medical records provided to the U.S. tech giant by a British hospital trust.

The Royal Free London NHS Trust transferred patient data to Google’s artificial intelligence firm DeepMind Technologies in 2015 to help develop a mobile app to detect kidney injuries.

Britain’s data protection watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, said in 2017 that the Royal Free, which is part of the public National Health Service (NHS), misused patient data when it provided the information to DeepMind.

Google and DeepMind were sued in 2022 by Royal Free patient Andrew Prismall on behalf of 1.6 million people for alleged misuse of private information.

London’s High Court threw out the lawsuit last year on the grounds that there was no prospect of establishing that all 1.6 million claimants’ private information was misused or that they had any expectation of privacy in relation to the information.

Prismall sought to appeal that decision, but the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on Wednesday. Prismall’s lawyers declined to comment. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by Tobin; editing by William James)