Google's DeepMind shouldn't suck up our NHS records in secret

The revelation that 1.6 million patients' records are being used by the company's artificial intelligence arm rings alarm bells

When it was revealed that Google's London-based company DeepMind would be able to access the NHS records of 1.6 million patients who use three London hospitals run by the Royal Free NHS trust - Barnet, Chase Farm and the Royal Free - it rang alarm bells.

Not just because the British fiercely guard their intimate medical histories. Not just because Google, a sprawling octopus of a company with tentacles in all our lives, wishes to "organise the world's information". Not just because patients are unlikely to have consented to Google having this information.