A U.S. federal judge said Meta Platforms must face a lawsuit claiming that it violated the medical privacy of patients who were treated by hospitals and other healthcare providers that used its Meta Pixel tracking tool.

Meta Platforms must face medical privacy class action::A U.S. federal judge said Meta Platforms must face a lawsuit claiming that it violated the medical privacy of patients who were treated by hospitals and other healthcare providers that used its Meta Pixel tracking tool.

  • JackGreenEarthEnglish
    26•1 year ago

    Why were hospital websites using a tracking pixel? That’s on them. Like, Meta is scummy company, but whose choice was it to put a tracking pixel, whoever it’s from, on a hospital website?

    • @[email protected]English
      16•1 year ago

      I wonder if it was the hospitals that put the pixel there. Portals are usually outsourced to software vendors. If so many hospitals did it it might be the vendor’s stupid choice.

    • @yemmlyEnglish
      13•1 year ago

      If you use the Meta-provided “find us on Facebook” icon on your Web site, it works like a tracking pixel.

  • @gedaliyahEnglish
    5•1 year ago

    This spells disaster for other corporate spyware like the new Chrome (and chromium) browsers.

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco said the plaintiffs could pursue claims that Meta violated a federal wiretap law and a California privacy law, and violated its own contractual promises governing user privacy on Facebook.

    In a 26-page decision on Thursday, the judge said the case, based on the evidence so far, “does not negate the plausible allegations that sensitive healthcare information is intentionally captured and transmitted to Meta.”

    The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for all Facebook users whose health information was obtained by Meta.

    Neither Meta nor lawyers for the Menlo Park, California-based company responded on Friday to requests for immediate comment.

    When the litigation began in June 2020, lawyers for one plaintiff said they had found at least 664 hospitals and other healthcare providers that used Meta Pixel.

    Orrick, however, said it was not clear whether Meta did enough to stop the transmission of patient details, or might be excused because healthcare providers actually consented to it.

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