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CrispyQ

(36,226 posts)
5. There was a story last week about apps that some hospital staff use that send data to Facebook.
Tue Jun 28, 2022, 09:43 AM
Jun 2022

This isn't that story, but here's some background.

The Sneaky Genius of Facebook's New Preventive Health Tool
The feature looks likely to fill gaps in care—and to further draw users into Facebook’s ecosystem.

By Sidney Fussell

JANUARY 8, 2020

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/01/facebook-launches-new-preventative-health-tool/604567/

snip...

Facebook Preventive Health targets users in broad strokes using only two data points: age and gender. If you opt in to the feature, Facebook will send you checkup-reminder notifications and suggest nearby sites for flu shots, cancer screenings, and blood-pressure tests, among others. In an October blog post, Abnousi said the feature will also suggest free clinics for the uninsured.

A spokesperson for Facebook denied that the Preventive Health tool is related to the Building 8 data-sharing proposal. Preventive Health, like many of the health initiatives led by Silicon Valley, doesn’t fall under the purview of HIPAA, the 1996 federal law protecting private patient information. Many experts say HIPAA is outdated, because its narrow definition of data collection does not cover the way tech companies collect and process health information.

“Physicians swear an oath to keep an individual’s data confidential,” Jesse Ehrenfeld, chair of the American Medical Association Board of Trustees, told me over email. “There’s currently no such obligation for technology companies and data aggregators or the data brokers to whom they might sell information.”



Many experts say HIPAA is outdated, because its narrow definition of data collection does not cover the way tech companies collect and process health information.

Too bad Congress is broken & can't fix things like this that affect all Americans. JFC, I am so fucking sick of republican'ts.
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