- Chief Compliance Officer and VP of Legal Affairs, Arrow Electronics
By 
Adrianne Appel2023-02-09T21:55:00
A bipartisan group of senators is leaning on three telehealth firms accused of tracking and sharing patients’ sensitive personal information with advertising platforms like Google and Facebook.
Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) sent letters dated Feb. 2 to the chief executive officers of Cerebral, Monument, and Workit Health regarding a report the companies are tracking and sharing patients’ personally identifiable health information with advertisers. The senators asked the companies to reply to a series of questions by Feb. 10.
The letters were sent a day after the announcement of a $1.5 million settlement telehealth company GoodRx agreed to with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations the former shared personal health data with third parties for advertising purposes in violation of the Health Breach Notification Rule. Under the proposed settlement, the first concerning the rule, GoodRx agreed to revamp its user consent and data retention practices.
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The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission proposed telehealth company Cerebral pay a total of $7 million for its alleged sharing of patient data and deceptive business practices in violation of the FTC Act.
The Federal Trade Commission proposed requiring online counseling service BetterHelp to pay $7.8 million as part of a settlement addressing charges it shared clients’ personal health data with Facebook, Snapchat, and other third parties for advertising purposes.
Banner Health agreed to pay $1.25 million as part of a settlement with the Department of Health and Human Services addressing violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Security Rule regarding a 2016 data breach.
Michael Macko, deputy director of enforcement at the California Privacy Protection Agency, described priorities for the agency now and in the near future during a recent board meeting.
Eight large companies, including Mastercard and JPMorgan Chase, have been ordered by the Federal Trade Commission to provide detailed reports about their possibly secret use of artificial intelligence to track customers and use the information to set prices.
Facial recognition company Clearview AI reached a preliminary settlement in a class action lawsuit alleging it violated the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act, with the company agreeing to compensate victims with stake in the company.
