Erm, in the United States we have HIPAA which directly makes "a third-party cloud service" "legally obliged to respect the privacy of their patients and the confidentiality of medical data". Besides, using AI doesn't have to mean using centralized cloud architecture.

Similar apps have been around a while - http://www.wired.com/2015/09/social-network-doctors-swap-gro...

> And finally, if you’re worried about your own gnarly ER visit showing up on Figure 1, the app is very careful about patient privacy. Every time anyone uploads an image, the first thing they do is fill out a consent form. Figure 1 has an algorithm that automatically obscures faces, and tools that let the user erase any pixels containing names, dates, or any other identifying details.

Mark Zuckerberg didn't say this app was brand new - he just mentioned that he became aware of it recently.

SkinVision has been around for 5 years. "It was founded in 2011 in Bucharest, Romania based on a PhD study to apply the mathematical theory ‘fractal geometry’ for medical imaging. Fractal geometry simulates natural growth of tissue and is widely used and documented in biology." [1]

[1]: https://skinvision.com/team

Figure 1 isn't really the same thing. It's not a diagnostic tool, it doesn't store PHI, and a human reviews every image before it's visible in the app. Figure 1 is closer to Instagram than it is to the Watson stuff which is all HIPAA compliant.

A consent form for consenting to what?

I'm sure the same privacy conditions exist here in Australia too. However, when getting my skin checked, I asked the doctor about what she was looking for, out of curiosity. To explain, she pulled up vision of a problematic mole on someone else's file, and their name/details were visible.