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One million anonymised eye scans from Moorfields Eye Hospital will be usedto train an artificial intelligence (AI) system from Google.

Machine learning algorithms will scour the images for signs of diseases such asmacular degeneration and diabetes-related sight loss.

Moorfields is teaming up with Google’s AI division DeepMind during the scheme.

Previously, DeepMind faced criticism over a little-known data sharing agreementwith three London hospitals.

An agreement to share patient data from the Royal Free, Barnet and Chase Farmhospitals over the past five years and continuing until 2017 was revealed by theNew Scientist in May.

In that case, Google said it was analysing kidney data in the hope of developing anapp for medical staff.

The app, called Streams, would notify doctors should someone be at risk ofdeveloping acute kidney injury (AKI).

Announcing the latest venture with Moorfields, Google has cited the support of theRoyal National Institute of Blind people (RNIB) and sight charities such as theMacular Society.

‘Revolutionary’ potential

“How it plays out over time remains to be seen,” Sam Smith, a co-ordinator atpatient data campaign group MedConfidential, told the BBC.

“But you do have organisations involved that aren’t principally concerned withDeepMind – they care about blindness in the case of RNIB and long term medicalresearch in the case of the National Institute for Health Research.”

“Maybe they have learnt the lessons of their Royal Free fiasco,” theMedConfidential Twitter account tweeted, “Not that they’ve shared what they learntfrom that…”

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One tech journalist, Gareth Corfield, tweeted that he “hit the roof” after reading thenews. He has written a letter to Moorfields citing the Data Protection Act.

“This is a serious dereliction of your duties as a data controller,” he wrote.

“To be crystal clear, I have not consented for my personal data to be used byMoorfields NHS Trust for any purpose other than treating me for genuine medicalpurposes.”

However, current rules state that as long as data is anonymised it may be sharedfor ethically approved projects.

Moorfields has published a Q&A on the DeepMind collaboration which adds,”patients can opt out of any data-sharing system by emailing the Trust’s dataprotection officer”.

“Our research with DeepMind has the potential to revolutionise the wayprofessionals carry out eye tests and could lead to earlier detection and treatmentof common eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration,” said Prof SirPeng Tee Khaw, director of the National Institute for Health Research BiomedicalResearch Centre in Ophthalmology at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Google has said it is estimated that up to 98% of sight loss that is a result ofdiabetes can be prevented with early treatment.

Recently, Massachusetts General Hospital announced a collaboration withsemiconductor firm Nvidia to develop new artificial intelligence techniques toimprove the diagnosis of diseases.