UK Government offers NHS data to Amazon for free

The government hopes the move will help reduce pressure on NHS GPs and pharmacists

Critics have accused the UK government of "selling off" NHS data to private companies, as new details about the health service's contract with Amazon have emerged.

The government has refused to reveal the exact details of the contract, which offers the American firm access to NHS healthcare data for free.

The new details appeared this week, following a series of freedom of information (FOI) requests from Privacy International and other organisations.

A heavily redacted copy of the contract, released by the UK Department of Health and Social Care, reveals that the new deal would allow Amazon to access information on definitions, causes and symptoms of conditions, as well as 'all related copyrightable content and data and other materials'.

The information, which excludes patient data, would allow the billion-dollar company to distribute the data it is entitled to worldwide, and also utilise it to make 'new products, applications, cloud-based services and/or distributed software'.

However, the NHS will not receive any financial benefit in return for the use of its data.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced the NHS-Amazon partnership back in July, telling journalists that it would enable Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa to offer better health advice to users.

Government officials claimed at the time that the arrangement would help reduce pressure on "hard-working GPs and pharmacists," as people would turn to Alexa instead of calling the NHS hotline. They also said the move would help solve accessibility problems for people who were not able to "easily access nhs.uk content via a mobile device or computer."

The contract does not allow Amazon to access patient data, one of the most profitable markets for data globally.

Labour's shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, has criticised the government on the issue.

He told the Sunday Times that the government was "highly irresponsible" and "in the pocket of big corporate interests".

Liberal Democrats spokesperson Tom Brake also accused the Conservative Party of "selling off NHS data for nothing".

Eva Blum-Dumontet, a senior researcher at Privacy International, said the main issue in this deal was not about data sharing, but transparency. She stated that the Department of Health and Social Care had redacted several sections of the contract to protect Amazon's commercial interests.

Explaining why many sections of the contract were redacted before release, the Department of Health told Privacy International, "The public interest in the disclosure of the agreement with Amazon is largely focussed on the issue of sharing personal data. The redacted clauses in the agreement cover unrelated commercial issues and therefore do not advance the public understanding of the issue of sharing personal data."

Commenting on the agreement, Amazon said that the content it had access to was already available on the NHS website.

"Amazon does not build customer health profiles based on interactions with nhs.uk content or use such requests for marketing purposes," the company added.