WSJ: Feds Open Inquiry Into Google's 'Project Nightingale'

A federal inquiry has been opened into Google and Ascension's "Project Nightingale" to determine if HIPPA protections were implemented while the system gathered detailed health information from millions of patients, according to Roger Severino, the director for the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights.

"While new technology holds great promise for improving healthcare outcomes, the privacy and security of patients' health data must not be sacrificed to achieve this goal," Severino said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

HIPPA, or the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, lets hospitals share data with its business partners if the information is only used to help them carry out healthcare functions.

The Journal reported Tuesday that Google and Ascension, based in St. Louis, are sharing records to process data for administrative and treatment reasons in an attempt to leverage artificial intelligence for patient outcome purposes. But in this case, patients and doctors were not notified.

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