Nothing is safe or private anymore, not even your own medical data.

Sure it’s supposed to be safe but based on a recent report, it appears that Google has been gathering the personal health information of tens of millions of Americans without their doctor knowing about it, or the patients knowing about it either in a project is known as “Project Nightingale“.

According to The Daily Wire,

Tech giant Google is reportedly engaged in collecting the personal health information of tens of millions of Americans across 21 states — a project dubbed “Project Nightingale” — and has not notified patients or doctors about what they are doing.

“Google began Project Nightingale in secret last year with St. Louis-based Ascension, a Catholic chain of 2,600 hospitals, doctors’ offices and other facilities, with the data sharing accelerating since summer,” according to internal documents obtained exclusively by The Wall Street Journal. “The data involved in the initiative encompasses lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalization records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, including patient names and dates of birth.”

“Neither patients nor doctors have been notified,” the Journal added. “At least 150 Google employees already have access to much of the data on tens of millions of patients, according to a person familiar with the matter and the documents.”

Both Forbes and The Wall Street Journal have reported that this massive data collection by Google does not violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The first question that popped into my head is, “How is this not a violation of HIPAA? I may have found the answer. It seems like HIPAA really doesn’t mean jack squat.

“A source familiar with the project said that patients are not aware of Google’s access to their data, though patient privacy laws generally allow the sharing of patient data with third parties without notification if it is for purposes that ‘help it carry out its health care activities and functions,’” reported Forbes. “Ascension employees have raised concerns internally, according to documents, about patient data privacy.”