Parents of sick children were not told about AI trial

Six parents are angry that they were never told the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry department in Roskilde took part in an AI trial using patient data while their children were being treated there. The report comes from the Danish outlet Ingeniøren, under the headline "Parents of sick children were not told about AI trial", and is part of its coverage of health data.

According to the piece, messages the parents sent through Min Sundhedsplatform, the patient platform, were shared with an AI tool without their knowledge. The article describes the kind of information handled at the clinic as sensitive and confidential: meltdowns at school, anxiety attacks at bedtime, sleepless nights and assessments for autism. It says an American AI was given access to such information for a period.

The regions have now admitted they may have acted "insufficiently". They had earlier rejected all criticism of the project. The parents' reaction is captured in the headline quote, "It is shocking".

The article is paywalled, so only the opening is available. It points to related Ingeniøren coverage: an overview of departments that shared confidential patient data in an "unlawful" AI project, a report on a parent who fears what has been shared about her child, and a report that AI has had access to more than 100,000 messages containing confidential data about Danish patients. One of those pieces quotes a source saying the rules are being broken "with open eyes".

The case matters because it involves children's mental health records, and because the regions have shifted from rejecting criticism to conceding that their handling may have fallen short.