Mount Nittany Health secretly shared patient info with Facebook, Google, lawsuit alleges
Mount Nittany Health violated the medical privacy rights of its patients by exposing their private information to two of the world’s largest tech services without their knowledge or consent, a proposed class-action lawsuit filed Monday alleged.
The health care system that operates the only hospital in Centre County joined a growing list of health systems to be accused of sharing confidential information with Facebook, Google and other third-party websites.
”We do not comment on pending litigation,” Mount Nittany spokeswoman Tania Luciow wrote in an email Thursday.
The 83-page lawsuit filed on behalf of two unnamed Centre County residents claimed Mount Nittany used pixels — computer code that collects information on how a user interacts with a website — including a product developed by Facebook’s parent company Meta that make the collected data accessible.
Data culled from patients and sent to the internet giants included their status, medical providers, treatments, location and searches for information about specific medical conditions and treatments, attorney George Bochetto wrote.
Mount Nittany knowingly used Meta Pixel on its website and did not tell its patients, Bochetto wrote. It was not immediately clear when the alleged practice began.
“A simple search for ‘pregnancy’ on Mount Nittany’s website allows Meta Pixel to capture that search term and tell Facebook that the patient is likely pregnant,” Bochetto wrote. “Indeed, Facebook might learn that the patient is pregnant before the patient’s close family and friends.”
Several health care systems in the U.S. have voluntarily disclosed breaches of data to outside companies through tracking technology and disabled or removed all pixels.
North Carolina-based Novant Health sent letters to about 1.3 million patients in August, while Advocate Aurora Health — which has headquarters in Wisconsin and Illinois — said in October that personal information of up to three million patients may have been exposed.
Mount Nittany, Bochetto wrote, has “done nothing.” The lawsuit alleged the health system continues collect and share its patients’ personal health information.
Bochetto sought to have the lawsuit certified as a class action that’d represent thousands of people. The four-count lawsuit sought more than $1 million and other damages.
