Two class-action lawsuits were recently filed against Facebook (now known as Meta) over allegations that the company and major US hospitals violated medical privacy laws with a tracking tool that collects patient data such as allergies and doctor visits. , directly to Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
The Verge reports two class action lawsuits alleging Facebook and major US hospitals violated medical privacy laws with a tracking tool that sends medical information directly to Mark Zuckerberg’s platform without patient consent.
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg (Kevin Ditch/Getty)
The lawsuits were filed in the Northern District of California in June and July and included the Facebook Pixel tracking tool. The tool is uploaded to websites to monitor Facebook and Instagram ad analytics. The pixel collects information about how people interact with websites and enter information.
Earlier in June, a study by Markup found that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in the US use the Facebook Pixel on their websites. The research revealed that the pixel tracking tool was installed on password-protected patient portals of seven hospitals.
In addition, Markup found that the tool was posting information about patients’ health, doctor visits, and drug allergies to Facebook. In one lawsuit, a patient said his health information was posted to Facebook using a UC San Francisco tool and Dignity Health’s patient portals. The patient was then shown an advertisement for his heart and knee.
Another lawsuit comes from a patient at MedStar Healthcare in Baltimore, Maryland, who claims that at least 664 healthcare providers have posted medical data to Facebook using the Pixel tool.
The HIPAA Medical Privacy Act requires healthcare organizations to obtain consent from patients before sharing personal health information with outside groups. Facebook says groups using the Pixel tool are required to have the right to share data before sending it to Facebook, and sensitive health data is filtered out.
The lawsuit alleges that Facebook deliberately failed to comply with these guidelines and placed the Pixel on healthcare organizations’ websites knowing that it would collect personal health information.
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Source: Breitbart
