I-MED and harrison.ai remain silent as Mark Dreyfus raises privacy concerns

I-MED and harrison.ai shut down amid criticism from politicians and corporate rights advocates Crikey’s revelation that companies are training artificial intelligence on patients’ private medical scanners without their knowledge.

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Yesterday, a Crikey An investigation has revealed how Australia’s largest medical imaging provider gave a booming health tech startup backed by industry heavyweights access to hundreds of thousands of Australians’ chest X-rays, raising concerns among privacy experts.

This data was used to train an AI tool that propelled harrison.ai to become a darling of the Australian startup scene with a multi-hundred million dollar valuation, and helped modernise I-MED’s business.

Neither company responded to repeated requests for comment. Crikey on the legal basis for the use and disclosure of such personal information.

In response to Crikey’s During the investigation, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said there were real concerns about AI and health information.

“The use of health information to train AI models raises privacy concerns about the lawful handling of personal information,” a spokesperson for his office said.

“Reforming Australia’s privacy laws is essential to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place for AI and other rapidly developing technologies.”

The federal government has proposed reforms to Australia’s privacy laws – which experts say could clarify what data is protected – but is only expected to consider the changes if it is re-elected.

Greens senator and digital rights spokesperson David Shoebridge said the government was responsible for the misuse of health data because of its failure to enact these reforms.

“Going for a medical exam is often a very vulnerable time for people. Finding out that those exams will be swallowed up by companies to train their AI without consent can even deter people from seeking medical help,” he said. Crikey.

“The government’s failure to deliver promised privacy reforms is partly to blame. Every day of inaction could result in thousands of people having their personal information that they want to keep private shared, monetized and exploited.”

Rafi Alam, senior campaigns and policy adviser at consumer advocacy group CHOICE, said the behaviour of harrison.ai and I-MED was “very concerning”.

“Consumers tell us time and time again that the laws need to change to end this freedom of action against our personal information,” he said.

“We are encouraged by some of the amendments recently proposed by the government to the Privacy ActBut much more needs to be done quickly to protect people from invasive practices, including imposing legal obligations on companies to collect and use our data fairly, as well as strict safeguards for artificial intelligence systems.

Harrison.ai and I-MED did not respond to requests for comment. Harrison.ai’s backers, Blackbird Ventures, Skip Capital, Horizon Ventures or Ramsay Healthcare, also did not immediately respond. I-MED’s owner, Permira, also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At least one person involved is aware of the matter. Last night (and again this morning), harrison.au co-founder Dr Aengus Tran viewed this journalist’s LinkedIn profile. However, he did not accept a subsequent connection request.

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