Dinerstein, who spent parts of eight days at the UC Medical Center in June 2015, says “numerous pages of health records” were published, and that in using his smartphone at the hospital, the company was able to link his unnamed records to his other personal information through Google software and accounts on the device. He alleges that Google used DeepMind, a subsidiary, to assess the records and create commercial products by using AI to make connections between hospital records and Google user data, and that a January 2018 article published by the two in Digital Medicine, at nature.com, describes the research and methodology and acknowledges the contents of the record.

Dinerstein says the class will include “hundreds of thousands of individuals.” He is seeking damages, class certification, a jury trial, an injunction forcing UC to obey HIPAA regulations, a court order barring it from disclosing records without patient consent, and another prohibiting Google from using, and forcing it to delete, the records it obtained from the school.


Formal complaints include a violation of the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and breach of express or implied contract against UC, tortious interference with contract, and unjust enrichment against Google, and intrusion upon seclusion against both.

Google did not respond for comment.

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