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| A child looks at the new Meta logo of Facebook's parent company, outside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park on Oct. 28, 2021. (Photo: AFP) |
The data sent to Facebook includes the IP address, which means that the user or their family can be identified.
Two new lawsuits are being filed against Facebook's owner Meta for collecting data from US hospitals without notifying users.
The claims mention a metapixel that sends data to Facebook when a button is clicked.
A recent report by The Markup found that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in the U.S. used the Pixel.
The data sent to Facebook includes the IP address, which means that the user or their family can be identified.
In seven of these 33 hospitals, the Pixel was installed on password-protected patient portals that shared the names of patients' medications, details of their allergic reactions and future doctor appointments. had lived. Some hospitals removed the pixels after reports of markups.
One lawsuit alleges that medical information sent to Facebook by the Pixel from patient portals at the University of California San Francisco and Dignity Health resulted in her (female patient) receiving treatment for her heart and knee conditions. See related ads, some of which have no scientific reason.
The US Medical Privacy Act requires health care organizations to obtain patient consent before sharing identifiable information with outside groups. The lawsuits allege that Meta is intentionally not enforcing these policies.
Meta did not respond to The Independent's request for comment and questions sent by The Markup before publication of this story.
Instead, a spokesperson sent a paragraph from the company's sensitive health data policy: 'If Meta's signals filtering systems detect that a business is using Meta Business Tools to transmit potentially sensitive health data from its app or website. is sending data, which in some cases may be by mistake, potentially sensitive data will be removed before it is stored in our advertising systems.'
David Holtzman, a health privacy consultant who previously served as senior privacy adviser at the US Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Civil Rights, which implemented HIPAA, told The Markup: Very concerned about what they (hospitals) are doing with the data they have shared.
"I can't say that (sharing this data) is a definite violation of HIPAA. It's a potential violation of HIPAA."
The lawsuits have not yet been certified as class actions, which a judge must do before a lawsuit can be filed, but if they do, it would involve the loss of all consumers whose medical services provide them. Those who do have used the Pixel.
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