But in the meantime, and in lieu of any federal data privacy law in the US, protecting personal information falls to the individual. And for that, Friedman recommends browser-based tools Ghostery and Privacy Badger, which identify and block transfers to third-party domains. “It impacts your browsing experience almost none,” he explained. “It’s free. And you will be shocked at how much tracking is actually happening, and how much data is actually flowing to third parties.”
Note: Although Friedman recommends Ghostery and Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin is generally considered a better privacy-enhancing browser extension. Additionally, there exist multiple approaches for adblocking and tracker blocking beyond the browser extension model.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Reading this while in an urgent care lmao
Feel better.
Just a sprain :P I should get over it fast. Thank you though :)
I bet they made you use a website or app to check in. And that website wasn’t created by the Urgent Care. So everything you entered isn’t protected by HIPPA.
They did and probably 😔
Welcome to for-profit healthcare.
I feel like this is ripe for abuse. I’m sure insurance companies purchase this data to screw their customers in some wicked way
I remember years ago my friends told me Ghostery did some shady business. Sadly it is difficult to find any useful information about this, between the lots of ads and pop ups (Where have all the blog posts gone ?), but here is something : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostery#Criticism
Doesn’t this violate HIPAA, or does HIPAA not cover this?
HIPAA prevents providers from sharing your personal medical data. In this case, you are the one sharing the data by using a third-party portal. Best recommendation is to check-in in person, complete ER forms on paper, and avoid using third-party apps/websites for medical care. Provider-hosted secure portals are protected by HIPAA.
That’s a huge loophole.
Fuck this country. 😬
Write your representatives asking for privacy legislation. The EU’s GDPR is a great example.
I’m not a programmer so I could be wrong… Aren’t using the direct medical apps on your phone (Epic, FollowMyHealth, etc) safer than the web?
Or are they selling that data too?
This is just a guess, but I would assume the hospitals doing this are unaware. They probably just put Google Analytics and Meta’s SDK on their website, completely oblivious to the fact that that shit vacuums up everything on the page, including text box inputs.