Lawsuit against Google over medical information dismissed by British court

A lawsuit against Google over medical information given to the US tech giant by a British hospital trust was dismissed on Friday. The claim was launched on behalf of 1.6 million patients.

In 2015, the Royal Free London NHS Trust handed patient data to Google's artificial intelligence business DeepMind Technologies in order to build a smartphone app that would evaluate medical records and detect acute kidney damage.

The Information Commissioner's Office, Britain's data protection authority, stated in 2017 that the Royal Free Hospital, which is part of the public National Health Service (NHS), mishandled patient data when it transferred it to DeepMind.

Alphabet Inc unit Google and DeepMind were sued last year by Royal Free patient Andrew Prismall on behalf of 1.6 million people for alleged misuse of private information.

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The companies argued in March that the case is "bound to fail" as 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.

Judge Heather Williams ruled on Friday that the case should not proceed, agreeing the case is "bound to fail".

"I conclude that each member of the claimant class does not have a realistic prospect of establishing a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of their relevant medical records," she said in a written ruling.

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