Facebook charged with misleading users on health data visibility | Healthcare IT News

Facebook has been accused of misleading users in its Group platform about who can see their private information, and argues Facebook did not disclose how much information could be visible to outsiders — including health information.

WHY IT MATTERS

“Sharing of privately posted personal health information violates the law, but this serious problem with Facebook’s privacy implementation also presents an ongoing risk of death or serious injury to Facebook users,” the complaint states.

The report, written by CareSet Systems CTO and hacktivist Fred Trotter and healthcare attorney David Harlow, offers an in-depth review of the health data being shared, used and curated in these Facebook Groups.

The document argued that even though the social media site actively encourages users to share private health information in numerous ways, Facebook’s privacy and access control sets are inconsistently applied.

In addition, the report said Facebook allowed substantial patient health information to leak and charges that as a personal health record (PHR) platform, is in violation of the FTC Health Breach Notification rule.