Project Nightingale
Project Nightingale is a joint project by Google Cloud and Ascension, a large Catholic health system with about 2,600 hospitals and clinics in 21 states. The plan is to store and process tens of millions of patients’ health information in Google’s cloud to help doctors manage care and improve outcomes.
In 2019, Ascension and Google began talks to build software that could store and search medical records. They signed a HIPAA business associate agreement, allowing data to move to Google Cloud and promising Google would only use it to provide services to Ascension.
Google publicly mentioned Nightingale in July 2019, saying the goal was to improve the health care experience and outcomes. The Wall Street Journal later reported in November that doctors and patients hadn’t been notified and that about 150 Google employees would have access to the data. Google Health chief David Feinberg said access was limited to trained staff approved by Ascension.
Privacy concerns grew because of Google’s past privacy controversies. Google said the Nightingale data would not be mixed with Google’s consumer data.
The data being shared include names, dates of birth, diagnoses, lab results, hospitalization records, addresses, family members, allergies, immunizations, radiology scans, medications, and medical conditions. After a patient checks in, doctors’ notes and test results are uploaded to Google Cloud. The system could suggest treatment options, help manage which doctors treat the patient, and enforce rules about narcotics. Ascension could also adjust how it bills for care.
The Guardian published a whistleblower account claiming patients could not opt in or out, and raised questions about HIPAA compliance. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services opened a privacy inquiry led by the Office for Civil Rights to learn more about how this mass collection of medical records affects patient privacy.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 18:35 (CET).