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Rory Cellan-Jones

Medical records via Google or Microsoft?

  • Rory Cellan-Jones
  • 6 Jul 09, 16:45 GMT

Would a Conservative government dump the hugely expensive plan to digitise NHS patient records - and hand the job over to private firms like Google or Microsoft?

That's certainly the suggestion in a couple of newspapers this morning. But is that really Tory policy, does the private sector want the job, and would it work?

Computer keyboardWhat's under discussion is the NHS National Programme for IT - or more specifically the Care Records Service - which is being introduced in England.

Last year the National Audit Office warned that the whole project was over-budget and years behind schedule, with the total cost to the taxpayer running at £12.7bn and rising.

So are the Conservatives really going to call in Google Health or Microsoft HealthVault - systems in use in the United States - and get them to do the job for a lot less money?

Not yet, a press officer told me, but they are looking at a review they've commissioned from a panel of experts which has been considering what to do about the NHS IT project.

And a further hint that there was something to the story came this morning at an event called Reboot Britain, convened to discuss radical ways of using technology to rewire politics and the delivery of public services.

The shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt was the opening speaker, and while discussing the way the internet was shifting the balance of power between people and politicians, he did throw in that NHS IT figure of £12.7bn and ask whether there might be a better cheaper way of giving the public control over their medical records.

But Google did not seem eager to rush in and grab this great big contract. Its Google Health is a service which allows Americans to build online health profiles, to download their own records from doctors and pharmacies, and to search for medical information and treatment.

But Google stresses that this service works in a healthcare system that could hardly be more different from the one in the UK.

Microsoft has a rather different line on its HealthVault system which it describes as a "personal health application platform designed to put consumers in control of their health information."

The company says it's already in talks with the NHS about launching the system in England, though as an add-on rather than a replacement for the Care Records Service.

But would getting in either of these firms save any money? Because it's worth noting that private sector businesses - including Microsoft - are already heavily involved in the NHS National Programme for IT, but that hasn't stopped the project from becoming a costly disaster.

What is clear, however, is that politicians from all parties are waking up to two things - firstly, that huge centralised IT projects nearly always end in tears, and secondly that a web-savvy populace is demanding more access to its own data.

So a plan to allow us all to store our medical records, along with our photos and e-mails, somewhere in a Google or Microsoft cloud will need a lot of work before it becomes a reality.

But don't rule it out. After all, who would have predicted 10 years ago that we would one day see the head of MI6 in his Speedos on Facebook?

Maggie Shiels

Music industry v Technology

  • Maggie Shiels
  • 6 Jul 09, 10:15 GMT

Ringtones - sometimes they are funny, sometimes entertaining, sometimes rude and, yes, sometimes they are just plain annoying.

Boy on mobile phoneRingtones are a multi-billion dollar industry and everyone from Madonna to Charlie Parker and from Wagner to Wang Chung is available for download.

Well now a court in New York is being asked to decide if ringtones can be classed as a public performance and if so the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, aka ASCAP, wants a piece of the action.

ASCAP has filed a suit in a Manhattan court against the country's two largest wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon. The organisation is a non-profit that collects fees for public performances of music. It then pays royalties to its 350,000 songwriting and publishing members.

Back in the 1990's ASCAP garnered unflattering headlines for suing the Girl Scouts over publicly performing camp songs like "Happy Birthday" and "Puff the Magic Dragon."

Now it is claiming that a ringtone that is played on a cellphone breaches copyright law.

In its brief ASCAP explains when a ringtone becomes a public performance:

"It need only be 'capable' of being performed to the public; whether the ringtone is set to play, and indeed whether anyone hears it, is of no moment."

The brief later states that:

"Whether the device is on or off, the volume is turned down, or the phone is placed on vibrate, AT&T has caused a public performance."

ASCAP has brought a similar action against Verizon but says it won't go after individuals in this fight.

Operators that sell ringtones already pay royalties to songwriters for use of their material.

So it's the music industry versus technology again over copyright.

Naturally enough there are a few groups who have asked the court to throw the whole thing out on its ear.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, says:

"[T]hese wrongheaded legal claims cast a shadow over innovators who are building gadgets that help consumers get the most from their copyright privileges."

Public Knowledge and the Centre for Democracy and Technology argue that copyright law exempts performances that are conducted without a commercial purpose.

ASCAP disagrees.

All three groups have said in their amicus brief to the court that they reject as "bogus copyright claims...that could raise costs for consumers, jeopardise consumer rights, and curtail new technological innovation."

EFF's senior intellectual property attorney Fred von Lohman says:

"Are the millions of people who have bought ringtones breaking the law if they forget to silence their phones in a restaurant? Under this reasoning from ASCAP, it would be a copyright violation for you to play your car radio with the window down!"

Fines for copyright infringement are steep. Up to $150,000 (£92,600) per violation.

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