In our last class, we were shown an article that pointed out another aspect of Google’s vast knowledge of each of its users (http://www.fastcodesign.com/3058943/the-ux-of-ethics-should-google-tell-you-if-you-have-cancer). Every Google search you have that’s linked to you IP address, or your google account, every word you enter in any of Google’s apps, every move you make on their Chrome books or when using Google Chrome browser…all of that information is available to the computers and therefore the people that keep Google running.

In a new question, Google wants to know if it should advise certain users to see a doctor. It was pointed out that with specific algorithms, Google could piece together your searches of medical symptoms and determine if you were suffering from a potentially harmful condition. With this information, they could advise you to see a doctor, and thus potentially save the health or even the lives of some of their users. While this idea seems great in principle by adding an extra safety measure to our lives, there are also many issues it call into play.

Number one, where exactly does our privacy begin? Not only does Google collect every miniscule bit of data packed into our computers and browsers, now it wants to use that data to discover something potentially quite invasive about me? While I find myself wary enough at the information Google collects about me as it is, the idea that they want to use this information to determine things about my private life and health unnerves me quite a bit more. That would be where I draw the line. I trust my doctors to inform me if anything’s wrong with me, not an equation on a computer.

And that brings me to my second point. How accurate would this algorithm be? I could have looked up these symptoms for other people. I’m going to do it the same way I’ll search for symptoms I’m feeling myself. Earlier this year, I did a research project in which I explored atrial fibrillation and other heart conditions. It was necessary for me to look up many conditions so I could explain them adequately. While I do have a very real risk of developing any number of heart conditions, only two of my searches contained something I’m diagnosed with, and they were the most mundane. A few years ago, I looked up child development of young babies, the progression of a pregnancy, and I’ve looked up baby names many times. But I am not pregnant and never have been. Any conclusions Google could make about me based on any of these searches would be false. Even now, is Google collecting this data and coming to conclusions about us that are possibly false?

To drive home my point, perhaps I should point out more concretely that Google doesn’t know everything. I have a Google+ account that I’ve accessed less than a handful of times. Occasionally I get emails about it, even though I don’t use it. Even with all of the information Google has collected about me, in this particular instance the important portion of it would be that the last time I accessed Google+ was more than two years ago, I still received an email that asked “Do you know Molly Fitzpatrick?” While I understand the premise—it’s trying to point out people that I could add on Google+ and thus increase my use of the site—the fact that this email asking if I knew my sister came on the heels of a class where we discussed just how much Google knows about each of us made it appear absurd.

Bottom line, I don’t want google anywhere near my medical file. It’s a browser, a producer of digital media, and a collection of tools—not a doctor. I think I’ll stick to my cardiologist.