A bipartisan group of senators fiercely criticized several prominent telehealth startups for failing to protect sensitive health information, citing an investigation by STAT and The Markup which found dozens of telehealth companies sharing patient data with Facebook, Google and other major advertising platforms.
“This data is extremely personal, and it can be used to target advertisements for services that may be unnecessary or potentially harmful physically, psychologically, or emotionally,” wrote Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) in letters sent this month to telehealth companies Monument, Workit Health, and Cerebral requesting information on their data sharing policies.
The investigation by STAT and The Markup examined the data-sharing practices of 50 direct-to-consumer telehealth companies, including Workit, Monument, and Cerebral. Specifically, the investigation examined what data is shared as companies use trackers from big tech companies — including Meta, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, and Twitter — to target advertisements and follow consumer browsing and buying patterns online.
兩黨參議員團體強烈批評幾家著名的遠程醫療初創公司未能保護敏感的健康信息，並引用STAT 和 The Markup 的一項調查，該調查發現數十家遠程醫療公司與 Facebook、谷歌和其他主要廣告平台共享患者數據。
Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)、Susan Collins (R-Maine) 寫道：“這些數據非常個人化，可用於針對可能在身體、心理或情感上不必要或可能有害的服務投放廣告。” )、Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) 和 Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) 在本月致遠程醫療公司 Monument、Workit Health 和 Cerebral 的信中，要求提供有關其數據共享政策的信息。
STAT 和 The Markup 的調查檢查了 50 家直接面向消費者的遠程醫療公司的數據共享實踐，包括 Workit、Monument 和 Cerebral。具體而言，該調查調查了當公司使用來自大型科技公司（包括 Meta、谷歌、TikTok、微軟和 Twitter）的跟踪器來定位廣告並跟踪消費者在線瀏覽和購買模式時，共享了哪些數據。
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