Whenever a person schedules a doctor’s appointment, the tracker calls Meta pixel Facebook sends data – including details of medical condition, prescription and doctor’s appointment, The Markup reports.
Meta Pixel was also installed inside the password-protected patient portals of seven health systems.
Collectively, 33 hospitals reported more than 26 million admissions and outpatient visits in 2020, citing the latest data from the American Hospitals Association.
Although hospitals are prohibited by law from sharing personally identifiable health information with third parties, such as Facebook, without the consent of individuals or without any agreement, health data security experts say hospitals have violated the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). May be. ).
“I’m very concerned about what (hospitals) are doing with capturing their data and sharing it,” said David Holtzman. Privacy Advisors who have previously worked in the U.S. Served as senior privacy adviser in the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, which applies HIPAA, was cited.
“I can’t say (sharing this data) for certain is a HIPAA violation. It’s probably a HIPAA violation,” he added.
While Facebook itself is not subject to HIPAA, experts say it is about how tech giants can use personal health data for profit.
“This is an extreme example of the extent to which BigTech’s tentacles reach what we think of as protected data space. I think this is creepy, problematic and potentially illegal on the part of hospitals,” said Nicholson Price, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Was reported in Michigan.
After reviewing the findings, many hospitals removed pixels from their appointment booking pages and patient portals, the report said.
“If meta signal filtering systems detect that a business is sending potentially sensitive health data from their application or website using meta business tools, which in some cases may be mistaken, that potentially sensitive data will be removed before it is stored. In our advertising systems, “said Meta spokesperson Dale Hogg in an emailed statement.
