Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Government's announcement that NHS health information will be made available through Amazon’s Alexa, what steps he plans to take to ensure the privacy of patient data.

No patient data is being shared with Amazon as part of this agreement. The collaboration with Amazon simply connects people to medical information that is already freely available through the National Health Service website. Use of Amazon Alexa is just an alternative mechanism for accessing that information.

The agreement signed between the Department and Amazon is clear that none of the data generated through voice search using Alexa will be shared with third parties; that it will not be used for selling products or making product recommendations to Amazon users; nor is it building any form of health profiles on Amazon customers.