Do we want human GPs or AI Bots? It's up to us to opt out of transhumanist BigData

Still using a 'Health App' or 'SMART' device to make appointments or order 'scripts? Time's running out to stop BigTech's capture of our healthcare systems #ScrapTheApp

Photo by Lukas Blazek on Unsplash

Back in November last year, I wrote a two-part article about the two main apps that all Kiwi patients of GP practices are encouraged to use, either ManageMyHealth or MyIndici. Just like the UK’s NHS app, these are patient (or practice) management systems (PMS) that allow healthcare providers to record and communicate with their customers. They also nudge people to ‘conveniently’ book their appointments and arrange prescriptions via the app too. The data recorded on these apps is increasingly valuable to BigTech companies for multiple reasons. You can catch-up with my two-part article on this topic here:

As I’ve written before, lots of (understandably, perhaps) naïve people respond to these concerns with statements like “I don’t care who knows about my medications” or “I’ve got nothing to hide, I’m just a boring nobody”… But this attitude, disregard for confidentiality or privacy, and dismissal of where our personal data goes, who sees it and what it is being used for, is pretty terrifying.

The crux of the problem is ignorance of the fact our data is increasingly being weaponized against us. So, let me provide some examples of how.

Recently, an article (paywalled) published in NZ Doctor - a ‘magazine’ which has Kiwi doctors as its main subscriber audience - highlighted concerns GP Paul Hunter voiced about GP clinics signing-up to ‘yet another software project’ which seeks to harvest his patients’ data. Tech company DataCraft Analytics have agreements with the Primary Health Organisation (PHO) ‘Comprehensive Care’ that Dr Hunter’s clinic belongs to, and his legitimate concern was around the lack of informed consent for his patients. The content of this article, and the commentators responding to it, reinforces the apparent widespread ignorance of the scale and context of our problem, ironically, even amongst those who are central within this debate.

Back in November, I explained how ManageMyHealth app (MMH) was being used to coerce patients and manipulate their behaviours - including, explicitly, compliance with ‘best practice’. You can read an academic paper about that strategy here. MMH is owned by Cereus Health Group and ultimately Cereus Holdings, an international investor and management service provider, and as I explained previously, the Director of Cereus, Vino Ramayah also owns MedTech Global. MedTech is closely connected to DataCraft Analytics, MMH and NZ Government, the WHO and other Agenda 2030 Bigtech companies. I wasn’t aware in November, that MedTech Global had already signed a ‘strategic partnership’ agreement with DataCraft Analytics to ‘improve population health’. Tools such as their DrInfo platform provides healthcare professionals with a ‘dashboard’ that allows insights into things like when patients’ vaccinations and medications are over/due and levels of enrollments. EG:

Screenshot from DataCraft Analytic’s website

The article in NZ Doctor specified how the PHO ‘Comprehensive Care’ (listed in the DataCraft screenshot above) is (like many others I have written about previously) another $Multi-Million pseudo-charity-PPPP taking funding from Government in exchange for networking GP clinics (in this case, the Auckland area). Importantly, Comprehensive Care has (probably alongside the promotion of MMH) partnered with DataCraft Analytics to pay for ‘useful info’ about their own patients. Presumably because their GPs are ‘too busy’ to look at this info themselves.

Using this data in aggregate produces useful AI tools. For instance, in the methodology explained here, Big Data gathered from text entries and consultations trains AI algorithms to replicate judgements (diagnoses) of expert clinicians for children’s health conditions (eg BMJ paper). There have been significant developments in this area in recent years and as Dr Hunter hints at, there is no ethics applications involved because patients are usually completely unaware they are trial participants.

Incidentally, it’s interesting to note another classic example of the Revolving Doors of Power that I’ve written about before, Vivien Wei Verheijen, board member of Comprehensive Care, is also on the Consumer Advisory Committee of Pharmac and also a (lay) member of the NZ Law Society. How convenient.

Returning to DataCraft Analytics, this is an interesting company, not least because despite its claims to international IT expertise, its website is embarrassingly amateurish, in both its format (with non-live pages) and content (typos and out-of-date articles). This hardly promotes trust in the integrity of their cybersecurity. Locations via GPS, health data and workflow provide a range of options for micromanagement:

And unsurprisingly, DataCraft Analytics were involved with providing a covid era ‘dashboard’ of ‘vaccination uptake’:

…and also discuss a National Health Identifier (NHI) encryption method, because it has been recognised that in a sparsely-populated nation like NZ, it’s possible to reidentify anonymised data. But perhaps most intriguing is this website entry with no working hyperlink:

DataAnalytic’s MD, Jayden MacRae has according to Dr Hunter refused to respond to his concerns about patients’ data-harvesting. MacRae was previously with Compass Health and in 2011 as ‘Director of Research and Tech Innovation’.

Coincidentally MacRae led the delivery of MMH and also an ‘Influenza-like illness daily pandemic reporting system’ during 2011-14. Seems like he may have been on this covid era gravy train for at least fourteen years now? Readers maybe interested in who the main shareholders of DataCraft Analytics are? Emboss Trustees Ltd has only one shareholder: James White. And it seems White is shareholder/director of multiple other companies with non-healthcare-related profits. Let’s burrow down that different rabbit hole another day.

Finally, and importantly, earlier this year, MedTech Global was purchased by growing tech investor Banyan Software. What’s interesting about international Banyan Software is that it seems to be a Legatum-type ‘Partnership of Partnerships’ where rather than private equity onward-sell, acquired companies’ CEOs retain their role and structure and benefit from the network of the brand:

I’m not IT savvy, but I have to wonder about all this BigData Banyan Software has access to - where does it get stored, and where does it go? Is it fully de-identified? Who sees it and how is it used? The articles referenced by DataCraft are all fairly old (pre-covid era), and we know how technology has moved on since then.

If it’s free YOU are the product. Following

Debi Evans

’ advice - why not do something simple, quick and incredibly powerful to stop this BigTech coup? Reclaim our bodily sovereignty: #ScrapTheApp ! Do it now!