This is not "fake news" at all. This is the same factual event covered with a different spin. Use of the term "fake news" to describe reporting that is merely slanted in a direction you don't like--rather than presenting demonstrably false information as fact--is completely unwarranted, and is doing terrible damage to our social institutions.

This is a TEXTBOOK case of fake news - a newspaper owned by Google competitor spinning purchase of space on encrypted Cloud Storage and Google Apps productivity suite as a big medical data mining attempt by Google to drive a political agenda.

There are obvious concerns around data security here, but the article is very heavily distorting facts to drive outrage.

Also the Guardian isn’t owned by a Google competitor - it’s owned by the Scott Trust, an organisation set up specifically to maintain the paper’s editorial independence.

They have viewpoints which include a distrust of very powerful global corporations, and one you may or may not agree with - but it’s nowhere near ‘fake news’.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited

No, it really isn't. The Guardian article is factually reporting on what the "whistleblower" told them, both via the video and in a separate interview. They did not fabricate any details, or make any claims they knew to be false. They made a cursory attempt to present the other side of the story. Sensationalized, yes. Slanted, yes. But not fake.

Thank you for stating this so aptly and concisely. People are throwing "fake news" around for anything and everything they don't agree with. It really is making it difficult to have a reasoned discussion with people when they just dismiss something so generally.

Well, that seems a lot less sensational than the article. Covers HIPAA as well.

Without reading the Business Association Agreement it is hard to determine if Google has 'Acceptable Use' of healthcare data. Storing in the cloud is one thing, allowing a Business Associate to siphon that data for other use is another.

It's not just a cloud storage deal. The medical data is being used by Google for research purposes (training AI, apparently). Who knows what else Google will do with it now or in the future?

The real problem, though, is that this data was transferred without even notifying patients, let alone getting their consent.

> AI and ML solutions" sounds like a lot more than just data storage.

Everyone in the space, from providers (well, the ones big enough to) to insurers (essentially all of which are big enough to), is looking at AI and ML solutions for clinical, fraud detection, or other purposes, whether in house, or via Business Associates, or (probably most commonly for large orgs) a combination, and much of that involves BAs with cloud firms that also provide AI/ML solutions like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. From everything I've seen, Amazon and Microsoft are getting a lot more of that business than Google, because of their established relationships and stronger enterprise sales.