By: Pcmag
Dec 09, 2019
Earlier this year, the UK government announced a partnership with Amazon that let Alexa tap into information available on the National Health Service (NHS) website to answer health questions.
The idea was that UK residents could get health information from Amazon’s voice assistant instead of overloading NHS hotlines with simple queries. But in addition to questions about the accuracy of Alexa, critics were concerned about the influence of private companies on the NHS.
At the time, details were scant, but a redacted version of the Amazon-NHS contract has now been published in response to a Freedom of Information request from Privacy International, according to The Times. Of note is the amount of information to which Amazon has access, as well as how much Amazon could stand to benefit financially while the NHS gets nothing.