"Privacy organisation raises concerns over NHS and Amazon deal", 11 December 2019

In July [2019], the government announced the partnership which would bring verified health information to people’s homes in a bid to reduce pressure on GPs and other NHS services... Amazon’s algorithms would be given permission to trawl information on NHS websites to provide answers to common health questions... “In addition to the content of the NHS website and the right to use the NHS logo, they are also granting Amazon access to their Application Programming Interface (API),” [said Privacy International]... [the contract states that] the NHS (licensor) grants Amazon royalty-free access to programme interfaces; use of any systems, programmes or software made available through APIs; and access to archival copies of the API... Privacy International’s report suggests Amazon “is not making the NHS any promise, beyond guaranteeing it will give an attribution to the NHS when the NHS content is being quoted.”... A spokesperson for NHS England said: “No patient data is being provided to this company by the NHS, which takes data privacy extremely seriously and has put appropriate safeguards in place to ensure information is used correctly.”... A spokesperson for Amazon added: “Alexa does not have access to any personal or private information from the NHS. General health-related content from the NHS website has been freely available to the public and is now available to Alexa users via voice technology. The new option is particularly useful for those with accessibility needs who may not have been able to easily access nhs.uk content via a mobile device or computer in the past.”