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Sen. Warren Probes Google’s Quest for Soldiers’ Medical Data

ProPublica: “Reflecting rising concerns that Big Tech’s infatuation with artificial intelligence threatens privacy and economic competition, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has begun investigating Google’s efforts to swoop up medical information derived from biopsy specimens of millions of military service members. Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and the chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, wrote on Tuesday to Google and the Department of Defense, seeking information and records related to the company’s pursuit of a vast trove of medical data overseen by the military’s Joint Pathology Center. The archive represents a largely untapped gold mine for AI and health care companies, because computers can use the data to develop algorithms that detect patterns, like telltale signs of tumors, faster and often better than humans can. In her letters, Warren accused Google of “aggressive attempts” to gain service members’ medical information and Defense Department officials of “favoritism” toward the tech giant. “I am alarmed by reports that Google tried to privately broker a deal to secure exclusive access to JPC data,” Warren wrote to Sundar Pichai, CEO of both Google and its parent company, Alphabet…”

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