In 2019, Australian radiology company i-Med shared 750,000 chest scans with an AI startup without the consent of patients. The images dated as far back as 2006. Some of the scans were taken on unconscious patients in emergency who could not give consent.
The images were "de-identified", but de-identification is basically meaningless when we're talking about chest scans; like teeth, every chest is unique and it's very easy to identify someone by the features on their scans.
The government has made no move to strengthen privacy rights in Australia – in fact the opposite. The government is now handing this data wholesale to for-profit AI companies.
https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2024/patient-data-used-to-train-aussie-startup-s-ai.html
#privacy #surveillancecapitalism #auspol #AIsucks