Another healthcare organization is being sued for allegedly sharing private health information on patients with online advertisers, namely Facebook and its parent company, Meta.
A lawsuit filed in Florida Southern District Court accused the Palm Beach Health Network Physicians Group of utilizing Meta’s Pixel code on its website to gather personal data for the purpose of targeted advertising. According to the complaint, sensitive personal information was being sent to the third-party from Palm Beach Health’s patient portal, including searches made by patients, specifics on their appointments, medical test results, and details on their diagnoses.
The lawsuit claims the health system violated patient privacy laws, namely HIPAA. The plaintiff in the case, Ron Prosky, said he used Palm Beach Health’s website and began seeing targeted ads related to his undisclosed medical condition.
He is seeking damages and punitive fines as a remedy. Prosky and his attorneys allege the use of Pixel was not disclosed, even in the privacy policy on Palm Beach Health’s website.
Pixel gathers data—including personally identifiable information—on users, tracking their web activity and IP addresses through cookies to serve up ads. Typically, people cannot opt-out of this tracking and it can be hard to avoid without downloading browser add-ons to block it.
The lawsuit accuses Palm Beach Health of knowingly using the code and disregarding patient privacy.
