Google’s Secret ‘Project Nightingale’ Gathers Personal Health Data on Millions of Americans

Google is teaming with one of the country’s largest health-care systems on a secret project to collect and crunch the detailed personal health information of millions of Americans across 21 states. The initiative, code-named “Project Nightingale,” appears to be the largest in a series of efforts by Silicon Valley giants to gain access to personal health data and establish a toehold in the massive health-care industry. Google launched the effort in 2018 with Ascension, the country’s second-largest health system. The data involved in Project Nightingale includes lab results, doctor diagnoses, and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, complete with patient names and dates of birth. Neither patients nor doctors have been notified. At least 150 Google employees already have access to much of the data on tens of millions of patients.