Warren Opens Investigation into Secretive Google Efforts to Secure Exclusive Access to Millions of Servicemember and Veteran Tissue Samples

Press Release

"The Department of Defense's Joint Pathology Center has millions of tissue samples from service members and veterans that are meant to support the public good -- but Google came dangerously close to landing an exclusive monopoly on these samples and the right to charge DoD for access to this data. Google and the DoD owe the American people answers for these shady dealings, which could violate the privacy of our service members and veterans."

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"I am alarmed by reports that Google tried to privately broker a deal to secure exclusive access to JPC data. According to the ProPublica report, Google approached JPC in 2015 to pursue the valuable -- and potentially profitable -- pathology slides, undermining the public government contracting process that would typically include soliciting competitive bids to make sure any agreement maximizes the benefit to the public interest. Google launched its years-long campaign by submitting an "unsolicited proposal,' which would have provided the company with "exclusive access' to the data for at least four years. The proposal included a "requirement that it be able to charge the government to store and access the digitized information,' effectively excluding the government from tapping into its own data unless it paid a fee to Google. In an effort to cover its tracks, Google also inserted a non-disclosure agreement into the proposal, and disturbingly, may have attempted to improperly influence the process by making an employment offer to a DoD employee.

The DoD's actions showed clear "favoritism' towards Google getting the JPC contract. Specifically, three incidents raise ethical and legal concerns about DoD's relationship with Google."

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"Despite Google's best efforts to obtain exclusive access, JPC issued a request for information in 2020 for a pilot project to modernize its archives. Google doubled down on its brazen tactics after the company lost the pilot project to Johns Hopkins. In a letter to DoD, Google wrote "that the company had been unfairly excluded from "full and open competition,' a bold claim considering the frequent interactions between Google and JPC over the better part of the last decade. Frustrated by its lack of success at DoD, Google launched a lobbying campaign in Congress, where the company secured favorable report language in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 (NDAA FY2023) stating that the "process by which the JPC has chosen to digitize (its archives) may not fully incorporate advances in technology to scale this effort in a timely manner.'"

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