Two California healthcare institutions were named in a class-action lawsuit filed July 25 claiming that patients' private medical data was used to target them with Facebook ads.
University of California San Francisco Medical Center and San Francisco-based Dignity Health, along with Facebook parent company Meta Platforms, are being sued in the Northern California district of U.S. District Court.
The plaintiff alleges that Meta Pixel, which harvests data for use in targeted advertisements, collected her sensitive medical information without her consent while she was in the patient portals for UCSF Medical Center and Dignity Health, according to the complaint. Pharmaceutical and other companies subsequently sent her ads related to her health conditions on Facebook, she claimed.
A UCSF spokesperson told Becker's the hospital can't comment on pending litigation. Meta and Dignity Health didn't respond to requests from Becker's for comment.