Woman claims OKC hospital shared private healthcare information with Facebook


A woman has accused an Oklahoma City hospital of allowing tracking technology on its website that is alleged to have scraped her private healthcare information and given it to Facebook and other digital platforms.

In Oklahoma County District Court, a Jane Doe has made the claims in a proposed class-action lawsuit against Lakeside Women’s Hospital.

Jane Doe cites negligence, privacy violations, breach of implied contract, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty and violation of the state’s Consumer Protection Act.

The filing is similar to legal action taken last year in Oklahoma County and other claims made around the country accusing healthcare systems of patient privacy violations.

Lakeside Women’s Hospital referred The Oklahoman to Integris Health, which announced in 2013 it had become the hospital’s majority owner.

Brooke Cayot, a spokeswoman for Integris Health, emailed the following statement to The Oklahoman:

“Integris Health takes patient privacy seriously and works diligently to protect personal data. Generally, we do not comment on ongoing litigation matters. However, this is part of the same claim that was filed in July of 2023. Lakeside Women’s Hospital is under the same website management as our other facilities, it just has a unique website URL.”

More: Oklahoma lawsuit claims Integris let patient information to be tracked for advertising

Lawsuit claims Oklahoma hospital allowed Facebook to access patient information

Doe was an obstetrics and gynecology patient at the hospital from 2021 to part of 2023. She used its website to search for doctors, find medical services and access the patient portal, according to court documents.

Doe claims the hospital allowed code-based tracking devices on its website. The tracking devices collected and transmitted Doe’s private information to Facebook and other third parties, she claims in the court petition.

The information included her identity, physicians she searched for, treatment services she researched and her status as a patient.

Doe claims Facebook’s technology allows a user’s health information to be linked to their profile on the social media platform. A user’s health information is then alleged to be sold to third-party marketers who target users with online advertising.

“Healthcare patients simply do not anticipate that their trusted healthcare provider will send their private health information to a hidden third party — let alone Facebook, a company with a sordid history of violating consumer privacy in pursuit of ever-increasing advertising revenue,” the petition states.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, responded by email to The Oklahoman’s request for comment:

“We’ve been clear in our policies that advertisers should not send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools. Doing so is against our policies and we educate advertisers on properly setting up Business Tools to prevent this from occurring. Our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it is able to detect.”

Doe also claims Lakeside Women’s Hospital used Facebook’s tracking technology and other tracked data to improve and save costs on its marketing campaigns, improve its data analytics, attract new patients and generate sales.

Doe claims she suffered financial harm, loss of privacy, embarrassment, humiliation, frustration and emotional distress.

She is seeking damages to be determined by the court, as well as attorney’s fees.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Woman says Lakeside hospital shared private health data with Facebook

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