Amazon NHS Association
An association for elderly
people, blind people and other patients who cannot easily search for health
advice on the internet to access the information through the AI-powered voice
assistant Alexa.
Recently, Matt Hancock announced a new
collaboration between the NHS and Amazon, which paired expert medical advice by
NHS with amazon’s market-leading Alexa device. People who need medical
information can get advice directly from NHS which is more accurate, reliable
and safe.
Privacy campaigners have expressed their
concern for the data, they said that the data could be stored and used to sell
targeted ads aimed at customers.
Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch,
said: “Amazon’s Alexa records what people say, stores recordings in data
centres we know nothing about and exploits our data for profit.
This scheme will likely result in people being profiled and targeted by data
brokers based on their deeply personal health concerns”.
Amazon defended this by giving the
statement: “Customer trust is of the utmost importance and Amazon takes
privacy seriously. Customers are in control of their voice history. They
can review and delete voice recordings in the Alexa App or by visiting
amazon.co.uk/privacy. They can also opt-in to ‘delete what I just said’ or
‘delete what I said today’.”
Amazon said it will not build a health
profile of customers and all information is treated with the highest
confidentiality. It’s algorithm will use information from the NHS website to
provide answers to questions such as: “Alexa, how do I treat a migraine?”;
“Alexa, what are the symptoms of flu?”, and “Alexa, what are the symptoms of
chickenpox?”
The Department of Health (DoH) said it
would empower patients and hopefully reduce the pressure on the NHS by
providing reliable information on common illnesses.
Voice search has been increasing
rapidly and by 2020 half of all searches are expected to be made via
voice-assisted technology.Under the NHS long-term plan, which aims to improve the quality of patient care and health outcomes in an effort to relieve pressure on the health service, it has committed to making more services available digitally.
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