Meta faces mounting questions from Congress on health data privacy as hospitals remove Facebook tracker
M eta is facing mounting questions about its access to sensitive medical data following a Markup investigation that found the company’s pixel tracking tool collecting details about patients’ doctor’s appointments, prescriptions, and health conditions on hospital websites.
During a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on Sept. 14, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) requested that Meta — the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — provide a “comprehensive and precise” accounting of the medical information it keeps on users.
“There’s been substantial public reporting, controversy, and concern about the Meta Pixel product and the possibility that its deployment on various hospital systems’ websites, for example, has enabled Meta to collect private health care data,” Ossoff said.
“We need to understand, as the U.S. Congress, whether or not Meta is collecting, has collected, has access to, or is storing, medical or health data for U.S. persons,” he added.
