Government fund ‘comfortable’ with $32m investment in harrison.ai
The federal government investments fund says it is “comfortable” with its decision to pour tens of millions of dollars into controversial Australian artificial intelligence health company harrison.ai. However, it wouldn’t confirm if it considered the privacy commissioner’s probe into the source of the sensitive patient data used to train the startup’s AI.
On Thursday afternoon, the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC) — a $15 billion government-owned business — appeared before Senate estimates, where, as first reported by InnovationAus, it was grilled over its $32 million investment into harrison.ai.
The investment, made in late January, followed Crikey’s investigations into harrison.ai’s acquisition of hundreds of thousands of chest X-rays of Australian patients from the country’s biggest pathology provider, I-MED. Harrison.ai used the X-rays to train its AI without patients’ knowledge or express consent. I-MED is also an investor in harrison.ai.
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Crikey’s investigations — which also uncovered how this data included chest X-rays from the public healthcare system and from patients in emergency situations who could not consent to their scans being used — prompted inquiries from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner into I-MED. Harrison.ai has defended itself, saying it has abided by Australian laws and regulations and that how I-MED has handled this matter is outside its purview.
At estimates, Greens Senator David Shoebridge, the party’s digital rights spokesperson, questioned how the NRFC investigated the potential risks associated with its harrison.ai investment.
NRFC chief investment officer Dr Mary Manning said the corporation had considered concerns raised in these investigations before deciding to invest in harrison.ai, a decision made “shortly” before it was officially announced on January 29.
“We did look at ESG [environmental, social and governance] … including data privacy and patient data and we are comfortable,” she said.
However, despite repeated questions, Manning would not directly confirm whether the NRFC’s board was briefed on the privacy probe into I-MED and how the pathology company had collected the data to hand over to harrison.ai. It’s unclear whether the board knew about the probe when making the investment, just one of its seven so far.
The NRFC’s CEO David Gall, whose appointment was announced the day before the $32 million investment in harrison.ai, told estimates that due diligence on the AI health company and the decision to invest was made “before his time”.
Gall said he was unaware of the privacy commissioner probe and was committed to “review” the decision. He also said the NRFC had an ongoing role in managing investments in companies.
The NRFC also took a question on notice about harrison.ai’s use of Stanford data to train its models that are listed as for non-commercial use only.
The federal government’s investment was part of harrison.ai’s $170 million fundraising round, its third so far.
Minister of Industry and Science Ed Husic welcomed the investment: “This is what we want to see more of — brilliant Aussie know-how creating thriving world-beating businesses,” he said at the time.
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