He accused Meta of doing too little to monitor what information it was being sent. It is irresponsible, even negligent, and it must stop.” Wolfie Christl, a data privacy expert who has investigated the ad tech industry, said: “This should have been stopped by regulators a long time ago. “Our reasonable expectation when we’re accessing an NHS website is that our data won’t be extracted and shared with third-party commercial entities that could for targeting ads or linking our personal identities to health conditions,” he said. Professor David Leslie, director of ethics at the Alan Turing Institute, said the transfer of data to third parties by the NHS risked damaging the “delicate relationship of trust” with patients. ![]() The company says it prohibits organisations from sending it sensitive health information and has filters to weed such data out when it is received by mistake. Once the data reaches Facebook’s servers, it is not possible to track exactly how it is used. Using or sharing it without explicit consent or another lawful basis is illegal. Information sent to the company is likely to include special category health data, which has extra protection in law and is defined as information “about an individual’s past, current or future health status”, including medical conditions, tests and treatment and “any related data which reveals anything about the state of someone’s health”. The findings have caused alarm among privacy experts who said they indicated widespread potential breaches of data protection and patient confidentiality that were “completely unacceptable”. The Royal Marsden, a specialist cancer centre, sent data on patients requesting referrals, viewing information about private care and browsing pages for particular cancer types.Ī page about sexual development disorders on Alder Hey Children’s Hospital’s website, which shared details of the browsing with Facebook via the Meta Pixel. Barts Health NHS trust, which serves a population of 2.5 million in London, shared data with Facebook when a user clicked to “cancel or change an appointment” or added a visit to a particular hospital to their itinerary. Other NHS trusts sent detailed receipts to Facebook when users accessed pages for appointment bookings or completed online self-help courses. Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS trust shared data with Facebook when a patient clicked buttons indicating they were under 18, lived in Brighton and wanted to access mental health services. Data was also shared when users viewed the webpage for the Portman Clinic, which “offers specialist help with disturbing sexual behaviours”, and clicked for details on how to be referred to the service. The Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust in London shared data with Facebook when users clicked the information page for its gender identity service, which specialises in working with children who have gender dysphoria. It also shared data when users clicked to order repeat prescriptions. The name of the drug and the NHS trust were sent to the company along with the user’s IP address and details of their Facebook user ID.Īlder Hey Children’s trust in Liverpool, sent Facebook details when users visited webpages for sexual development problems, crisis mental health services and eating disorders. In one case, Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS trust shared when a user viewed a patient handbook for HIV medication. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is investigating. Multiple trusts said they had originally installed the tracking pixels to monitor recruitment or charity campaigns and were not aware that they were sending patient data to Facebook. This weekend, 17 of the 20 NHS trusts that were using Meta Pixel confirmed they had pulled the tracking tool from their websites.Įight issued apologies to patients. Millions of patients are potentially affected. It also includes details of when web users clicked buttons to book an appointment, order a repeat prescription, request a referral or to complete an online counselling course. It was collected from patients who visited hundreds of NHS webpages about HIV, self-harm, gender identity services, sexual health, cancer, children’s treatment and more. Records of information sent to the firm by NHS websites reveal it includes data which – when linked to an individual – could reveal personal medical details. Information extracted by Meta Pixel can be used by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, for its own business purposes – including improving its targeted advertising services. It is matched to the user’s IP address – an identifier linked to an individual or household – and in many cases details of their Facebook account. ![]() The data includes granular details of pages viewed, buttons clicked and keywords searched.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |