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California sent residents' personal health data to LinkedIn

The state’s health insurance exchange transmitted pregnancy and domestic abuse data during a marketing campaign. It is reviewing its website practices.

The website that lets Californians shop for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, coveredca.com, has been sending sensitive data to LinkedIn, forensic testing by The Markup has revealed. Sara Geoghegan, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said it was “concerning and invasive” for a health insurance website to be sending data that was “wholly irrelevant” to the uses of a for-profit company like LinkedIn. In addition to demographic information including gender, the site also shared details with LinkedIn when visitors selected their ethnicity and marital status, and when they told coveredca.com how often they saw doctors for surgery or outpatient treatment.

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