National Commission into the Regulation of AI in Healthcare

Privacy and data protection are likely to be key determinants of public trust in AI and the application of AI in healthcare.

Indeed, previous problematic data initiatives in the NHS have highlighted the importance of privacy and data protection and the key role it plays in public trust in healthcare. For example, data sharing by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust with Google Deepmind.

Any regulatory framework for AI in healthcare therefore needs to place privacy and data protection at its core.

Such a framework must consider not only privacy and data protection risks associated with developing and using AI products for healthcare, but also the privacy and data protection risks associated with pre and post market surveillance of these AI products.

Developers, vendors and users need to be able to provide patients, healthcare professionals and other stakeholders with robust assurances, not only with regard to the functional outputs of these AI products (eg. treatment recommendations), but also with regard to the processes (including processing of personal data) by which these AI products are developed, used and overseen.

Read the BBC article on the National Commission’s recommendations at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3wjn3pl63xo

Read the recommendations from the National Commission into the Regulation of AI in Healthcare at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-commission-into-the-regulation-of-ai-in-healthcare-recommendations-for-a-future-regulatory-framework/national-commission-into-the-regulation-of-ai-in-healthcare-recommendations-for-a-future-regulatory-framework

Read the National Data Guardian’s statement in relation to data sharing by the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust with Google Deepmind at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ndg-statement-on-information-commissioner-office-ico-decision-on-royal-free