Class Action Claims Salem Health Shares Website Visitors’ Data with Facebook, Google

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A proposed class action accuses Salem Health Hospitals and Clinics of secretly sharing website visitors’ private information with third parties, including Facebook and Google, without consent.

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The 63-page lawsuit alleges that the Oregon-based healthcare network “knowingly” embedded invisible web-tracking technology into SalemHealth.org and its patient portal. According to the suit, the tracking tools capture and disclose users’ personal information and online communications to unauthorized third parties, which then use the data for marketing purposes.

The tracking technologies—which include Facebook’s Meta pixel and Conversions application programming interface (API) and Google Analytics—are designed to intercept and record every move a visitor makes on a website in real time, the case relays. By intentionally utilizing these tools on its website and patient portal, Salem Health has violated the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act and breached patients’ protected privacy rights, the complaint contends.

“[Salem Health] has essentially planted a bug on patients’ web browsers that forced them to disclose their private and confidential communications with [the defendant] to third parties,” the filing says. “Salem Health’s utilization of the Tracking Tools to secretly track and share with third parties its patients’ communications on its Website is the electronic equivalent of looking over the shoulder of each visitor for the entire duration of their Website interaction.”

Per the lawsuit, patients can use SalemHealth.org to access the patient portal, schedule appointments, find doctors, research conditions and treatments, pay bills, communicate with providers and more. However, unbeknownst to visitors, Salem Health shares with third parties its patients’ sensitive personal data, including their status as patients, health conditions, treatments sought, search queries and the location and specialty of their physicians, the suit claims.

The case further alleges that the healthcare system wrongfully discloses other personally identifying information, such as a user’s IP address, the contents of any online communications and their Facebook ID—an identifier uniquely associated with an individual’s Facebook account.

This combination of data allows third parties—“or any ordinary person”—to “quickly and easily” link specific individuals to their activities on SalemHealth.org, the complaint stresses.

According to the filing, Salem Health did not disclose its use of the tracking tools to website visitors, nor did it obtain authorization from users to share their data with third parties.

“Healthcare patients simply do not anticipate or expect that their trusted healthcare provider will send personal health information or confidential medical information collected via its webpages to a hidden third party—let alone Facebook and Google, which both have a sordid history of privacy violations in pursuit of ever-increasing advertising revenue—without the patients’ consent,” the case argues.

The lawsuit looks to represent any current or former patients of Salem Health or any of its affiliates who reside in the United States, have used SalemHealth.org and have had their personal data disclosed to a third party without authorization.

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