On Feb. 14, law firm Herman Herman & Katz announced via a news release that it has filed class-action lawsuits against two of the largest hospital networks in Louisiana. The networks allegedly have been using Meta pixel code that shares sensitive patient data without patients’ knowledge or consent.
The news release says that “Known as Meta Pixel, the computer code created by the company that owns Facebook and Instagram potentially analyzed, gathered and shared the sensitive medical data of hundreds of thousands of patients, the lawsuits allege. These victims were patients within the LCMC Health Systems network of hospitals in the New Orleans area and Willis-Knighton Health System facilities in northwest Louisiana, according to the lawsuits.”
LCMC Health Systems facilities include Children’s Hospital, East Jefferson General Hospital, New Orleans East Hospital, Touro, University Medical Center New Orleans, and West Jefferson Medical Center.
Willis-Knighton Health System facilities include Willis-Knighton Medical Center, Willis-Knighton South & the Center for Women’s Health, WK Bossier Health Center, WK Pierremont Health Center, and WK Rehabilitation Institute.
Further, “The Meta Pixel code was created by Meta to narrowly target users with digital advertisements. When website visitors clicked the “schedule an appointment” button, the code captured sensitive health information like medical conditions, prescriptions, doctors’ names, and previous appointments and sent it to Facebook. In one case, for example, a woman received targeted ads about heart disease and joint pain shortly after entering her information into one of the hospital websites.”
The use of Meta Pixel in healthcare settings, according to the lawsuits, violates Louisiana law which prohibits the sharing of personal health information with third parties without patient consent.
Herman Herman & Katz is collaborating with AZA Law in Houston and Kelly & Townsend LLC in Natchitoches, La., on the litigation.
Stephen Herman, partner at Herman Herman & Katz was quoted in the release saying that “We are learning more and more about this shocking breach of trust as our investigation continues. This was a gross invasion of privacy that we believe went on for years.”
These are not the first class-action lawsuits filed focusing on the Meta Pixel tracking tool. In August 2022, we reported that two lawsuits were filed in the Northern District of California in June and July of 2022. An investigated was published by The Markup in June 2022 and found that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in the U.S. use the Meta Pixel on their websites, including seven hospitals that installed it on password-protected patient portals. The investigation found that Meta Pixel was sending information about patient health conditions, medical appointments, and medication allergies to Facebook.
In October of 2022, we reported that Advocate Aurora Health—headquartered in Downers Grove, Ill., and Milwaukee—said on its website in a statement that it installed pixels on its website that possibly breached the data of up to 3 million patients.
