The website in California where consumers can shop for and enroll in health insurance plans that comply with Obamacare sent users’ personal health information to LinkedIn.
Covered California, the state-run marketplace for Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), had a website on which consumers were asked about whether they were blind, pregnant, or used a high number of prescription medications, CalMatters reported, adding, “Kelly Donohue, a spokesperson for the agency, confirmed that data was sent to LinkedIn as part of an advertising campaign. … Visitors who filled out health information on the site may have had their data tracked for more than a year, according to Donohue.”
Covered California sending data to a company such as LinkedIn is “concerning and invasive,” Sara Geoghegan, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said, calling it “wholly irrelevant” for LinkedIn to have the information. “People don’t expect that their health information will be collected and used in this way,” she added.
“LinkedIn is already facing multiple proposed class-action lawsuits related to the collection of medical information,” CalMatters noted. “In October, three new lawsuits in California courts alleged that LinkedIn violated users’ privacy by collecting information on medical appointment sites, including for a fertility clinic.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), a former candidate for governor, wrote on X, “This is incredibly disturbing. California’s Obamacare website tracked users’ personal health information – such as pregnancy and prescription drug use – and sent it to LinkedIn for a ‘marketing campaign.’ We are asking Secretary Kennedy to investigate for HIPAA violations.”
“Covered California has identified that some sensitive data was inadvertently collected by the tags, including first names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, and other sensitive health information like pregnancy status. To our knowledge, access to this data was limited to Covered California credentialed users for the limited purpose of managing Covered California’s account,” the agency acknowledged.
“Covered California is now the largest state-based health insurance marketplace in the country,” the organization boasts on its website. “Over the last decade, we’ve helped reduce the percentage of uninsured adults under the age of 65 from 19.4 percent to just 7.5 percent — well below the national average.”
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[[{“value”:”
The website in California where consumers can shop for and enroll in health insurance plans that comply with Obamacare sent users’ personal health information to LinkedIn.
Covered California, the state-run marketplace for Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), had a website on which consumers were asked about whether they were blind, pregnant, or used a high number of prescription medications, CalMatters reported, adding, “Kelly Donohue, a spokesperson for the agency, confirmed that data was sent to LinkedIn as part of an advertising campaign. … Visitors who filled out health information on the site may have had their data tracked for more than a year, according to Donohue.”
Covered California sending data to a company such as LinkedIn is “concerning and invasive,” Sara Geoghegan, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said, calling it “wholly irrelevant” for LinkedIn to have the information. “People don’t expect that their health information will be collected and used in this way,” she added.
“LinkedIn is already facing multiple proposed class-action lawsuits related to the collection of medical information,” CalMatters noted. “In October, three new lawsuits in California courts alleged that LinkedIn violated users’ privacy by collecting information on medical appointment sites, including for a fertility clinic.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), a former candidate for governor, wrote on X, “This is incredibly disturbing. California’s Obamacare website tracked users’ personal health information – such as pregnancy and prescription drug use – and sent it to LinkedIn for a ‘marketing campaign.’ We are asking Secretary Kennedy to investigate for HIPAA violations.”
“Covered California has identified that some sensitive data was inadvertently collected by the tags, including first names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, and other sensitive health information like pregnancy status. To our knowledge, access to this data was limited to Covered California credentialed users for the limited purpose of managing Covered California’s account,” the agency acknowledged.
“Covered California is now the largest state-based health insurance marketplace in the country,” the organization boasts on its website. “Over the last decade, we’ve helped reduce the percentage of uninsured adults under the age of 65 from 19.4 percent to just 7.5 percent — well below the national average.”
“}]]
