Healthcare.gov Sends Personal Data To Over a Dozen Tracking Websites

An anonymous reader tips an Associated Press report saying that Healthcare.gov is sending users' personal data to private companies. The information involved is typical ad-related analytic data: "...it can include age, income, ZIP code, whether a person smokes, and if a person is pregnant. It can include a computer's Internet address, which can identify a person's name or address when combined with other information collected by sophisticated online marketing or advertising firms." The Electronic Frontier Foundation confirmed the report, saying that data is being sent from Healthcare.gov to at least 14 third-party domains.

The EFF says, "Sending such personal information raises significant privacy concerns. A company like Doubleclick, for example, could match up the personal data provided by healthcare.gov with an already extensive trove of information about what you read online and what your buying preferences are to create an extremely detailed profile of exactly who you are and what your interests are. It could do all this based on a tracking cookie that it sets which would be the same across any site you visit. Based on this data, Doubleclick could start showing you smoking ads or infer your risk of cancer based on where you live, how old you are and your status as a smoker. Doubleclick might start to show you ads related to pregnancy, which could have embarrassing and potentially dangerous consequences such as when Target notified a woman's family that she was pregnant before she even told them. "

Comments

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The only purpose it serves is to completely erase all trust. Who gets fired?

Re:Why?

[jakimfett]

Suggestion: Everyone go report this as a HIPAA violation.

Wow... Just "no".

[pla]

In what universe does a government website selling personal info to advertisers count as even remotely fucking acceptable???

This doesn't "raise significant privacy concerns", it sends a great big middle finger to the American public from its own elected officials. I don't care about the "potential" for misuse - I care that someone even considered the possibility of using healthcare.gov to siphon off PII.

Uncle Sam needs to retire.

Re:Wow... Just "no".

[gstoddart]

In what universe does a government website selling personal info to advertisers count as even remotely fucking acceptable???

One in which some asshole has decided it needs to run for a profit, or on a cost recovery basis ... and with zero regard for patient confidentiality.

I agree with you, and any sane country with privacy laws would be appalled -- and you'd expect this to violate some HIPAA laws.

Essentially this demonstrates the problems with analytics -- is some asshole you don't have anything to do with gets to know everything you do and everything about you.

That's utterly insane, and if it isn't, it should be illegal.

But somehow it seems that ensuring the profits of corporations is more important than privacy and the act of restricting what corporations do is unthinkable to some.

Re:Wow... Just "no".

[DarkOx]

Why are you surprised the entire 'Affordable' care is really just a pile of giveaways to certain monied interests.

I mean come on the left the private insurance industry in place, while all but forcing the public to buy their product. The left them with the ability to set rates. The only real encouragement for them not gouge, is fear of political back lash AND essentially a government grantee that if they do somehow lose money they will be make whole.

There essentially no controls on the medical tort industry in it.
Nothing was done manage increasing drug costs
The medial device tax, the like one thing that industry might not like, is suspended.
Piles of money were spent hiring the incompetent to build the exchange.

The entire thing is theft all the way up and down.

Re:Wow... Just "no".

[jellomizer]

Give me a H
Give me an I
Give me a P
Give me an A
Give me an A

What does that spell HIPAA
What does that mean! The government should fine itself!

I think if the government needs to fine itself, they should refund the money back to the tax payers for services failed to render.

Re: Wow... Just "no".

[gstoddart]

In this case, that asshole is a Democrat.

You're absolutely correct:

The Obama administration says HealthCare.gov's connections to data firms were intended to help improve the consumer experience. Officials said outside firms are barred from using the data to further their own business interests.

Just fucking wow.

The stupidity inherent in this choice is beyond belief.

Re:Wow... Just "no".

[BarbaraHudson]

In what universe does a government website selling personal info to advertisers count as even remotely fucking acceptable??? This doesn't "raise significant privacy concerns", it sends a great big middle finger to the American public from its own elected officials. I don't care about the "potential" for misuse - I care that someone even considered the possibility of using healthcare.gov to siphon off PII. Uncle Sam needs to retire.

There is zero evidence that this data is being used for advertising purposes - the article makes a lot of speculation. For example:

to private companies that specialize in advertising and analyzing Internet data for performance and marketing,

For example, IBM does both - but they also do pretty good data analysis. Would you rather it goes to some 3rd-world country for analysis (because you can be pretty sure it will be sold)?

Now, I'm not saying there's nothing to see here - but is it just fog that will dissipate in the morning sun or smoke that indicates a fire? Can't tell from the article, because it's almost al speculation and what-ifs.

Re:Wow... Just "no".

[budgenator]

They sent the info to 14 different companies,
HIPAA violation is due to willful neglect and is not corrected, Minimum Penalty, $50,000 per violation, with an annual maximum of $1.5 million; Maximum Penalty, $50,000 per violation, with an annual maximum of $1.5 million;
is a $1.5M fine going to phase either the USG or that rogue's gallery of internet advertiser's? We probably spend more than $22.5M on brake pads for fighter jets each year.

Re: Wow... Just "no".

[halivar]

Not really, most of the ACA was recycled Republican ideas, complete with bending over for the insurance companies and using private contractors to build the web site.

This is said repeatedly, and yet the previous administration, with a Republican house and senate, never advanced a bill for it, and not a single Republican voted for it when a bill for it finally was.

Re: Wow... Just "no".

[ganjadude]

Not really, most of the ACA was recycled Republican ideas,

People keep saying this, but its simply not true, unless you try and say that what a republican said was ok for the state to do is also ok for the fed to do, which is exactly the opposite of the truth. to some people, the 10th amendment still matters

Re:Wow... Just "no".

[The Fifth Man]

"only "covered entities" have to comply with HIPAA privacy regulations and, guess what? The government is not a covered entity."

Hi, HIPAA guy here. This is most assuredly incorrect. Popular misconception though.

Per HHS' own rules, the site operates as a Business Associate and is fully covered by HIPAA.

http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy...

Re: Wow... Just "no".

[njnnja]

I don't think the U.S. can afford all the health care Americans want

All discussions of the health care system needs to start and end with agreement on this quote, if nothing else. Of course we can't afford all the health care that we want; we also can't afford all of the iPhones that we want, or education, or anything, really. Economics is the study of how we allocate finite resources to try to satisfy infinite wants, and nowhere is that more stark than with health care.

Whether the method for allocating those finite resources is a price system, a queueing system, a random drawing, or otherwise, there are always trade-offs. The problem with health care is that nobody wants to acknowledge that some trade-off will be required. If you only use prices, then the poor won't get as much care as the rich. If you only use queues, then everybody will suffer with ailments during the wait. So we have this phenomenally complex system that tries to pretend that there are no limits to our medical resources, because while we are generally OK with the fact that rich people can have the latest iphone while others make do with generic android, or that you wait in line to get a table at your favorite restaurant, we are apparently not OK with hearing that someone doesn't get exactly the health care that they want when they want it because they don't have enough money, or other people with the same problem have booked the doctor's time for weeks.

Once we are honest about who we are willing to deny care to, then we can have a productive conversation about health care. Everyone can say "This is how I think care should be allocated" and we would create a system that allocates resources according to the wishes of the people, as expressed by their elected representatives. But instead we create layer upon layer of employer backed insurance, and government backed insurance, with some private delivery, but some public delivery, so that nobody can understand it. So now people's positions on health care reform are mere reflections of mood affiliation rather than of what they actually want out of the system.

I do not care about the ads

[houghi]

If they show me ads about smoking, condoms, beer or PCs is completely irrelevant.

What is relevant is that the governement is selling your data. Even if the other company would trow everything in /dev/null they should NOT do that. I do not even care if it is legal or not.

I care about the fact that they share your data.

Re:Who expected differently?

[jandersen]

You didn't need to be a drooling FoxNews zombie to see that Healthcare.gov was a bad idea.

But the reason it is a bad idea is not that all government does is bad - rather this illustrates why things like this should be managed by a body that is guaranteed to not be in bed with business and is stricly regulated. Whether or not this can be called corruption in the legal sense, it certainly is morally corrupt.

Re:Who expected differently?

[Tailhook]

Because Dems don't look to their angry leftist commentators to be told how to think?

Sharpton's regular broadcast just started as I read your bullshit. I listen to his hate mongering on WVON out of Chicago. You have no idea what you're talking about.

The callers are the best part. They've all been filled with hate from birth and many of them want violence.