Google shuns allegations, says patients’ health info not being used for its AI research

Google’s top health and cloud executives said the company isn’t misusing health data from one of the biggest U.S. health-care providers, pushing back against news reports that have triggered criticism from politicians of the search giant.

Google employees only have access to patient information in order to build a new internal search tool for the Ascension hospital network, said David Feinberg, head of Google Health. No patient data is being used for Google’s artificial intelligence research, he added.

The Alphabet Inc. company’s contract is governed by U.S. health privacy law that permits it access to patient records solely for the task of organizing Ascension’s various health records systems and building a tool to make them easier to search, Feinberg said.