Google has started removing private medical records from its search results, after adjusting its policy regarding personal information. On Thursday, the company’s search policy was amended to include “confidential, personal medical records of private people” under a list of content it may remove from search results, media reports said.
It can be extremely dangerous if private medical records are leaked with the victim’s future prospects affected and private lives of the vulnerable exposed, the Guardian reported.
The decision to remove medical records comes after several high-profile data breaches around the world. Information of millions of people was stolen following a 2015 hack targeting Anthem, the second-largest insurer in the US. According to The Verge, a study released in 2015 found that between 2010 and 2013, approximately 29 million medical records in the US were affected by data breaches.
The tech giant also plans to remove national or government issued identification numbers, bank account and credit card numbers and images of signatures from search results. In 2015, the company had began to remove revenge porn from its search results.
