Google to Develop Bitcoin-Style Health Record Tracking
http://sp-security.blogspot.com/2017/04/google-to-develop-bitcoin-style-health.html
DeepMind
Health, Google’s health tech branch, is going to use a new technology
loosely based on Bitcoin to allow hospitals, the NHS and even patients
to track their personal data in real-time mode. Google’s plan is dubbed
“Verifiable Data Audit” and aims to create a digital ledger
automatically recording every interaction with patient data. In other
words, any changes to or access of the data would be tracked and
visible.
The
industry watchers remind that AI-powered DeepMind has been cooperating
with London’s Royal Free Hospital in development of Streams, the kidney
monitoring software. At the time, it faced criticism from patients for
the overly broad data sharing agreements. The fears were that the data
sharing could give Google too much power over the NHS.
DeepMind co-founder explained how the system would work using the example relating to the Royal Free Hospital partnership: each entry in the ledger would record the fact that a particular piece of data has been used. The most interesting part is that the systems at work are loosely related to Bitcoin and the blockchain technology it is based on. The tech firm explained that the ledger would be append-only, like blockchain, so once a record of data use is added, it can’t be erased. The ledger will also allow for third parties to verify that the entries have not been tampered with – like blockchain, again.
On the other hand, the proposed system differs from Bitcoin’s decentralized nature (which requires the blockchain participants to burn enormous amounts of energy), because health data doesn’t need to be decentralized. As such, the “wasteful” elements of blockchain technology need not be imported over. In the long run, the system could be expanded to allow patients to control how and where their data has been used.
Posted by:
DeepMind co-founder explained how the system would work using the example relating to the Royal Free Hospital partnership: each entry in the ledger would record the fact that a particular piece of data has been used. The most interesting part is that the systems at work are loosely related to Bitcoin and the blockchain technology it is based on. The tech firm explained that the ledger would be append-only, like blockchain, so once a record of data use is added, it can’t be erased. The ledger will also allow for third parties to verify that the entries have not been tampered with – like blockchain, again.
On the other hand, the proposed system differs from Bitcoin’s decentralized nature (which requires the blockchain participants to burn enormous amounts of energy), because health data doesn’t need to be decentralized. As such, the “wasteful” elements of blockchain technology need not be imported over. In the long run, the system could be expanded to allow patients to control how and where their data has been used.
Posted by:
SaM
