Its coronavirus screening site accused of profiting from the epidemic

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Project Baseline, Google’s site for coronavirus testing, would collect patient health data for resale.

In any case, this is what Dr. Eugene Gu, a well-known Twitter personality, suspects after having read the general conditions of use of the tool. Indeed, the document would give Google the right to collect users' medical data for commercial purposes.

Google's coronavirus screening site

If the site Project Baseline exists since 2017, Google only launched its dedicated tool to help screen for coronavirus on Sunday March 15, 2020. Currently, only northern California residents have access.

As of Tuesday, all tests for the Covid-19 available via the platform have already been booked. In fact, the entire project, including the coronavirus tool, is not not actually managed by Google, but by Verily. The latter is a sister company, a subsidiary of the parent company Alphabet.

Who would benefit from the data?

If we always refer to the general conditions of use, any data submitted by a user can end up in the hands companies other than Google. Among other things, the search engine giant could share them with biopharmaceutical companies. Medical equipment manufacturers may also have access. In both cases, companies can use them for profit.

Worse, Verily mentions in her Terms of Service that it does not follow HIPAA. This is the already lax American law on the protection of the privacy of Internet users. In addition, you must have a Google account to be able to get tested for coronavirus on Project Baseline.

In any case, Dr. Eugene Gu criticizes the limitless greed of the web giants. They take advantage of the current misfortune to perfect the profiling of Internet users. For their part, Google and Verily did not respond to the accusations.

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