In July 2019, the UK government signed a deal with Amazon which would give the company access to health information acquired by the National Health Service with the intention of making verified health information more accessible to people at home and to reduce the pressure on NHS services. Amazon’s algorithms are being given permission to trawl information on NHS websites to provide answers to common health question. A NHS spokesperson said that no patient data would be provided to the company.

Privacy-focused organisations have expressed concerns about this deal, including that access to this material could allow Amazon to make, advertise, and sell its own products, as well as share the information with third parties. Amazon has replied saying that Alexa does not have access to any personal or private information from the NHS, that it is drawing on general health-related content that is freely available to the public on the NHS website, and that this move will only make healthcare more accessible.