Your healthcare information and internet searches are often leaked to third-party sources. Facebook has been caught receiving patient information from hospitals though its tracker tool. Google keeps track of our health-related searches. Mental health apps target keywords like “depression” that could become a data point for companies to contact our devices. Internet searchers can become fodder for these businesses to sell their wares.
A study published in the data science journal Patterns found that common marketing tools share sensitive health data with Facebook without patient consent. The issue of health data being exposed to data brokers and advertisers through basic fitness and health apps, such as exercise and pregnancy trackers, has been a long-standing thorn in the side of privacy experts. These entities do not qualify as patient care organizations, so users have few protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), says CPO Magazine.
According to The Washington Post, popular health apps share information with a broad collection of advertisers, according to a Post investigation. While most of the data being shared doesn’t directly recognize the person, apps do share a string of numbers that zero in on what is termed an “identifier.” That identifier is linked to our phones, rather than our names. But privacy experts say that merging identifiers with key words from our searches opens up consumer risks.
What the Post learned in their investigation was that several Android health apps including Drugs.com Medication Guide, WebMD: Symptom Checker and Period Calendar Period Tracker share information with advertisers who could then target that audience or interest group.
The Post says we unwittingly consent to these apps’ practices when we accept their privacy policies.
“We click through quickly and accept ‘agree’ without really contemplating the downstream potential trade-offs,” said Andrew Crawford, of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Those trade-offs could mean our information lands up in the hands of data sellers, employers, insurers, real estate agents, credit granters or law enforcement, warn experts.
The Center, along with eHealth Initiative, has proposed a framework to help health apps protect data from users that includes any information that could help advertisers learn about a person’s health concerns. Consumers can help protect themselves by not linking the app to their Google or Facebook accounts. On an iPhone, choose “ask app not to track” when prompted. Android users should reset their Android Ad ID frequently. On either device, always secure your phone’s privacy settings.