How Covered California has been sending personal health data to LinkedIn

FILE A Covered California sign Adriana Heldiz CalMatters The website that lets Californians shop for vitality insurance under the Affordable Care Act coveredca com has been sending sensitive records to LinkedIn forensic testing by CalMatters has revealed As visitors filled out forms on the website trackers on the same pages narrated LinkedIn their answers to questions about whether they were blind pregnant or used a high number of prescription medications The trackers also monitored whether the visitors stated they were transgender or achievable casualties of domestic abuse See the evidence on our Github repo Covered California the organization that operates the website removed the trackers as CalMatters and The Markup revealed this article The organization declared they were removed due to a marketing agency transition in early April In a report Kelly Donohue a spokesperson for the agency authenticated that records was sent to LinkedIn as part of an advertising campaign Since being informed of the tracking all proceeding advertising-related tags across our website have been turned off out of an abundance of caution she added Covered California has initiated a review of our websites and information measure and privacy protocols to ensure that no analytics tools are impermissibly sharing sensitive consumer information Donohue noted adding that they would share additional findings as they become available taking any necessary strategies to safeguard the precaution and privacy of consumer figures When an individual indicated they were pregnant the information was sent to LinkedIn via the Insight Tag Visitors who filled out fitness information on the site may have had their details tracked for more than a year according to Donohue who stated the LinkedIn campaign began in February CalMatters observed the trackers directly in February and March of this year It authenticated preponderance ad trackers including the Meta pixel tracker as well as all third-party cookies have been removed from the site as of April Since more than million Americans have signed up for wellbeing insurance through state exchanges like Covered California They were set up under the Affordable Care Act signed into law by President Barack Obama years ago States can either operate their exchange websites in partnership with the federal regime or independently as California does Covered California operates as an independent entity within the state regime Its boardis appointed by the governor and Legislature In March Covered California stated that after four years of increasing enrollment a record of nearly million people were covered by strength insurance through the undertaking In all the organization declared about one in six Californians were at one point enrolled through Covered California Between and the uninsured rate fell from to according to the organization the largest drop of any state during that time period This coincided with a series of eligibility expansions to Medi-Cal the state s fitness insurance campaign for lower-income households Experts expressed alarm at the idea that those millions of people could have had sensitive healthcare information sent to a private company without their knowledge or consent Sara Geoghegan senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center stated it was concerning and invasive for a medical insurance website to be sending records that was wholly irrelevant to the uses of a for-profit company like LinkedIn It s unfortunate she noted because people don t expect that their medical information will be collected and used in this way The LinkedIn Insight Tag CalMatters and The Markup in modern months scanned for trackers on hundreds of California state and county ruling body websites that offer services for undocumented immigrants using Blacklight an automated tool developed by The Markup for auditing website trackers CalMatters identified that Covered California had more than trackers on its site Out of more than of the cabinet sites the average number of trackers on the sites was three Covered California had dozens more than any other website we examined On coveredca com trackers from well-known social media firms like Meta collected information on visitor page views while lesser-known analytics and media campaign companies like email marketing company LiveIntent also followed users across the site But by far the the bulk sensitive information was transmitted to LinkedIn While certain of the statistics sent to LinkedIn was relatively innocuous such as what pages were visited Covered California also sent the company detailed information when visitors selected doctors to see if they were covered by a plan including their specialization The site also notified LinkedIn if someone searched for a specific hospital When an individual selected a therapeutic provider the information was sent to LinkedIn via the Insight Tag In addition to demographic information including gender the site also shared details with LinkedIn when visitors selected their ethnicity and marital status and when they communicated coveredca com how often they saw doctors for surgery or outpatient healing When an individual selected their ethnicity the information was sent to LinkedIn via the Insight Tag LinkedIn like other large social media firms offers a way for websites to easily transmit statistics on their visitors through a tracking tool that the sites can place on their pages In LinkedIn s occurrence this tool is called the Insight Tag By using the tag businesses and other organizations can later target advertisements on LinkedIn to consumers that have already shown interest in their products or services For an e-commerce site a tracker on a page might be able to note when someone added a product to their cart and the business can then send ads for that product to the same person on their social media feeds A robustness care marketplace like Covered California might use the trackers to reach a group of people who might be interested in a reminder of a deadline for open healthcare insurance enrollment for example In its comment Covered California noted the usefulness of these tools saying the organization leverages LinkedIn s advertising platform tools to understand consumer behavior and deliver tailored messages to help them make informed decisions about their fitness care options When an individual indicated they were a victim of domestic abuse or spousal abandonment the information was sent to LinkedIn via the Insight Tag Trackers can also be valuable to the social media companies that offer them In addition to driving ad sales they provide an opportunity to gather information on visitors to websites other than their own On its informational page about the Insight Tag LinkedIn places the burden on websites that employ the tag not to use it in risky situations The tag should not be installed on web pages that collect or contain Sensitive Figures the page advises including pages offering specific health-related or financial services or products to consumers LinkedIn spokesperson Brionna Ruff noted in an emailed declaration Our Ads Agreement and documentation expressly prohibit customers from installing the Insight Tag on web pages that collect or contain sensitive records including pages offering health-related services We don t allow advertisers to target ads based on sensitive input or categories Legal recourse Collection of sensitive information by social media trackers has in previous instances led to removal of the trackers lawsuits and scrutiny by state and federal lawmakers For example after The Markup in revealed the Department of Coaching sent personal information to Facebook when students applied for college financial aid online the department turned off the sharing faced questions from two members of Congress and was sued by two advocacy groups who sought more information about the sharing Other stories in the same series about trackers known as the Pixel Hunt also led to changes and blowback including a crackdown by the Federal Arrangement Commission on telehealth companies transmitting personal information to companies including Meta and Google without user consent and proposed class action lawsuits over information shared through trackers with drug stores vitality providers and tax prep companies LinkedIn is already facing multiple proposed class-action lawsuits related to the collection of healthcare information In October three new lawsuits in California courts alleged that LinkedIn violated users privacy by collecting information on medicinal appointment sites including for a fertility clinic Social media companies tracking practices have underpinned the tremendous enhancement of the tech industry but inadequate web users are aware of how far the tracking goes This absolutely contradicts the expectation of the average consumer Geoghegan declared In California a law called the California Confidentiality of Anatomical Information Act governs the privacy of diagnostic information in the state Under the act consumers must give permission to particular organizations before their medicinal information is disclosed to third parties Companies have faced litigation under the law for using web tracking technologies although those suits have not constantly been prosperous Geoghegan disclosed current protections like these don t go far enough in helping consumers protect their sensitive details This is an exact example of why we need better protections she commented of LinkedIn receiving the material This is sensitive vitality information that consumers expect to be protected and a lack of regulations is failing us CalMatters is a masses interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California s state Capitol works and why it matters