US healthcare marketplaces shared citizenship and race data with ad tech giants
Original: US healthcare marketplaces shared citizenship and race data with ad tech giants
Why This Matters
Highlights widespread privacy vulnerabilities in government healthcare systems affecting millions
Nearly all 20 US state-run health insurance marketplaces shared residents' sensitive application data with tech giants including Google, Meta, LinkedIn and Snap through pixel trackers, affecting over 7 million Americans who purchased insurance.
A Bloomberg investigation found that almost all US state government-run health insurance marketplaces shared residents' personal information with advertising and tech companies through pixel-sized trackers. New York's exchange shared data about incarcerated family members, while Washington D.C.'s exchange shared sex and race information with TikTok's tracker, along with email addresses, phone numbers, and country identifiers. Some racial data was masked while other information was not. Virginia's marketplace shared ZIP codes with Meta. Washington D.C. has paused its TikTok tracker rollout, and Virginia removed Meta's tracker after the findings. The pixel trackers, commonly used for web analytics, can collect sensitive healthcare data when misconfigured on government websites. More than seven million Americans purchased health insurance through state exchanges this year.