Search Giant, Google is secretly collecting millions of patient records across 21 states on behalf of a health care provider, “Project Nightingale" as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Project Nightingale,” as reported by Search Giant, Google is secretly collected millions of patient records across 21 states on behalf of a health care provider, “” as reported by The Wall Street Journal . Neither the provider’s doctors nor patients were made aware of the effort, according to the report.

By gathering millions of patient's records, Google wants to boost its healthcare services by developing an AI-powered software that will help patients. But the report alleges that the data supplied by Ascension is sourced from the health records of millions of Americans spread across 21 states. It includes various information like birth dates, patient names, diagnoses, lab results, etc.

In a news release issued after The Wall Street Journal reported on Project Nightingale this Monday, the companies said the initiative is compliant with federal health law and includes robust protections for patient data.

Also, the said partnership "Project Nightingale

" is not hidden in the dark, and some information on how exactly things would work out is mentioned in a press release.

However, the data being shared without knowledge brings ethical concerns into the picture. People going to hospitals and getting their treatment done wouldn’t expect that their private data would end up somewhere else.

according to NYTimes.

Google and Ascension are testing software that will allow healthcare providers to search a patient’s electronic health record by “specific data categories and create graphs of the information, like blood test results over time”,

This involves Ascension moving patient records to Google’s servers, with the eventual intention of giving medical professionals better access to patient data, improve care, and get insights on health data to improve treatment.

Google said it has a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Ascension, which “governs access to Protected Health Information (PHI) for the purpose of helping providers support patient care”. Such agreements are standard, and Ascension’s data cannot be used for anything other than what’s in the agreement, the company said. Google also ensured that “patient data cannot and will not be combined with any Google consumer data”.