US healthcare marketplaces shared citizenship and race data with ad tech giants
Source: TechCrunch
Image Credits: Filo / Getty Images
Almost all of the 20 U.S. state government‑run health insurance marketplaces shared residents’ application information with advertising and tech giants, including Google, LinkedIn, Meta, and Snap, according to a new investigation by Bloomberg.
The report highlights the privacy problems created by pixel‑sized trackers, which allow website owners to collect information about their visitors for web analytics and bug identification. While commonly used in digital advertising, these trackers can also collect personal information if misconfigured and placed on sites that contain sensitive content, such as healthcare data.
Findings
New York
New York’s health insurance exchange shared application data with several tech companies, including details about whether applicants have incarcerated family members.
Washington, D.C.
The Washington, D.C. exchange asked residents for sex and race. TikTok’s pixel tracker attempted to redact some of this information, but the redaction was inconsistent—some races were masked while others were not. A spokesperson confirmed that residents’ email address, phone number, and country identifiers were also shared with TikTok.
Washington, D.C. subsequently paused its rollout of the TikTok tracker.
Virginia
Virginia removed the Meta tracker from its website after Bloomberg found it was sharing residents’ ZIP codes with the tech giant.
Industry Context
This is not a new problem. Similar issues have previously affected:
Several companies and large health organizations have had to notify millions of users that they inadvertently collected and shared health information with tech giants whose profits rely on consumer data for advertising.
Implications
Bloomberg’s investigation shows that pixel trackers can affect large swaths of the population when placed on government websites. More than seven million Americans purchased health insurance this year through a state health insurance exchange, meaning a substantial portion of the population could have had sensitive data exposed to advertising platforms.