Almost all of the 20 U.S. state government-run health insurance marketplaces shared residents’ application information with advertising and tech giants, including Google, LinkedIn, Meta, and Snap, according to a new investigation by Bloomberg. The report highlights privacy problems created by pixel-sized trackers, which allow website owners to collect information about visitors, often for web analytics and identifying bugs. A common tool in digital advertising, these trackers also allow the collection of personal information if misconfigured and placed on websites that contain sensitive content, such as healthcare data.
What was shared
Per Bloomberg, New York’s health insurance exchange shared information with several tech companies about a person’s application, including whether they provided details about whether they have incarcerated family members. The health insurance exchange for Washington, D.C. also asked residents about the person’s sex and race, which TikTok’s pixel tracker attempted to redact. Some races were masked and others were not, the publication reported. A spokesperson for the Washington, D.C. exchange told Bloomberg that residents’ email address, phone number, and country identifiers were also shared with TikTok.
Which states took action
Washington, D.C. paused its rollout of the TikTok tracker, and Virginia removed the Meta tracker from its website after Bloomberg found it was sharing residents’ ZIP codes with the tech giant. Other states remain vulnerable to similar breaches, according to the investigation.
Not a new problem
This is not a new problem, and has previously caught out telehealth startups and healthcare giants alike. Several companies and healthcare giants have had to notify millions that they inadvertently collected and shared their health information with tech giants, whose profits are derived from using consumer data for advertising. But Bloomberg’s investigation shows that these pixel trackers can affect large swathes of the population when placed on government websites. The publication noted that more than seven million Americans purchased health insurance for this year through a state health insurance exchange.
Bottom line
If you use a state-run health insurance marketplace, your sensitive data — including citizenship, race, and application details — may have been shared with ad tech companies. Check your state’s current privacy policies and consider using privacy-focused browser extensions that block tracking pixels. The incident underscores the need for stricter data-sharing oversight on government healthcare websites.