These two articles appeared last week.
First we have:
New privacy concerns over health care website
Washington — The government’s health insurance website is quietly sending consumers’ personal data to private companies that specialize in advertising and analyzing Internet data for performance and marketing, the Associated Press has learned.
The scope of what is disclosed or how it might be used was not immediately clear, but 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 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.
More here:
Second we have:
Group Confirms Healthcare.gov Shares Personal Health Info with Third Parties
JAN 22, 2015 7:47am ET
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a technology policy advocacy group, says it has confirmed that the federal government's healthcare.gov insurance exchange site is sharing personal data, including ZIP code, income level, smoking status, pregnancy status, and more, with at least 14 third parties.
"EFF researchers have independently confirmed that healthcare.gov is sending personal health information to at least 14 third party domains, even if the user has enabled Do Not Track," EFF staff technologist Cooper Quintin writes in an EFF blog post after recent Associated Press reports.
According to Quintin, the information is sent via the referrer header, which contains the URL of the page requesting a third party resource. The referrer header, he wrote, lets the requested resource know what URL the request came from. In this case, the referrer URL contains personal health information.
Among the companies EFF technologists say the site is sharing information with are network optimization developer Akamai, Yahoo, Twitter, and Google and numerous Google subsidiaries such as Doubleclick and YouTube.
Lots more here:
While it would seem unlikely I wonder does the PCEHR site use similar approaches to share information with other entities?
Anyone able to say yes or no for certain?
David.
Due to its design the Australian system is much less likely to leak information - as its so bad there will be no information in it. The perfect yes Minister solution, right up there with Hospitals with no patients.
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