Big tech wants the health data of 1.3 billion Indians

Big tech makes a beeline for health data at hospitals. With the Personal Data Protection policy in the works, India must define the rights and permissions of owners and data co-creators. Mustn’t it also look for its pound of, err, flesh and ask for open-sourcing data?

Google, Microsoft have large studies going on at some of the largest hospitals and diagnostic chains in India. Amazon may not be far behind

While selling cloud+AI may be the initial goal, rather than selling medical software, loads of Indian population data is being used for commercial gains

What is fair use? Can a country and an economy as big as India set the trend for making health data a public good?

The new PDP Bill can set health data free for students, academics, small companies

Certain businesses manage to invent the future and win present-day battles at the same time. In a commercial released on Fox Television in November, for a fleeting second, Microsoft allows you to glimpse it.

“I am in India, and I’m going to see how Microsoft AI is helping people from going blind,” says the commercial’s lead actor. For 60 seconds, it’s a wide-eyed trip down a crowded street. A man on a bike unpacks a fundus camera, and people begin to queue up for eye screening. The device is made by Bengaluru’s 9-year-old startup Forus Health, but it’s the AI (artificial intelligence) from Microsoft that is doing the magic.

AUTHOR

Seema Singh

Seema has over two decades of experience in journalism. Before starting The Ken, Seema wrote “Myth Breaker: Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and the Story of Indian Biotech”, published by HarperCollins in May 2016. Prior to that, she was a senior editor and bureau chief for Bangalore with Forbes India, and before that she wrote for Mint. Seema has written for numerous international publications like IEEE-Spectrum, New Scientist, Cell and Newsweek. Seema is a Knight Science Journalism Fellow from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a MacArthur Foundation Research Grantee.

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