"I can't think of a better person than Dr. David Feinberg to lead health efforts at Google, helping to make a difference to the lives of millions of patients around the world," Mustafa Suleyman, co-Founder and head of Applied AI at DeepMind, told HCB News. "I'm excited to watch Streams take flight."

Despite Suleyman's excitement, the switch has raised concerns, stemming from a past incident in 2016, when the company was accused of obtaining inappropriate access to the medical information of 1.6 million patients for Streams through its collaboration with NHS hospitals. Many critics expressed fear over the amount of data that could potentially be accessed by DeepMind's parent company, Google, believing it would be linked to Google accounts, products and services, according to New Scientist. The deal was later deemed illegal by the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), reported The Verge.

DeepMind admitted wrongdoing in its original deal, saying that it “underestimated the complexity of the NHS and of the rules around patient data,” and did not explain the deal well enough to patients and the public. It stressed that its operations were autonomous from Google, and to dissuade worries, redrew its contracts with the NHS, and even formed an independent review board in 2016 to evaluate its work.

With its reabsorption, however, worries have once again resurfaced over the loss of its autonomy from Google and DeepMind's decision to shutdown the board, deeming it a "governance structure for DeepMind Health as a U.K. entity" but not the "right structure" in Google plans to expand the reach of the app beyond British shores, according to The Verge.

“DeepMind said it would never connect Streams with Google. The whole Streams app is now a Google product. That is an atrocious breach of trust, for an already beleaguered product,” Dr. Julia Powles of New York University School of Law said in a tweet.

Many are also concerned about the impact the move will have on the renegotiation of contracts between DeepMind and NHS hospitals.

DeepMind, however, says data remains under the control of its partners and that decisions regarding its use will lie with them. It also states that while contracts have not moved to Google, no changes have been made regarding where the data processed is stored. "We are currently in conversations with all of our NHS partners to plan for the team's transition," said the spokesperson.

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