Health Insurance Giant Blue Shield of California is notified millions of people of a data breach. The company confirmed on Wedns that it has been sharing patients’ Private Health Information With Tech and Advertising Giant Google Since 2021.
The Insurer said That the data sharing stopped in January 2024, but it only learned this februry that the year-long collection contained patients’ personal and sensitive health information.
Blue shield said it used google analytics to track how its its customers used its websites, but a misconfiguration had allowed for personal and health information to be collected as well Patients used on its website to find healthcare providers.
The Insurance Giant said Google “May have used this data to conject focused ad campaigns back to that that there individual members.”
Blue shield said the collected data also included Insurance Plan Names, Types and Group Numbers, Along with Personal Information Such as Patints’ CITY, ZIP CODE, Gender and Family Sizhe. Details of Blue SHIELD-Cassigned Member Account Numbers, Claim Service Dates and Service Providers, PATENT NAMES and PATENTS ‘Financial Responsibility was also shared.
Per a legally required disclosure With the US government’s health department, blood shield of california said it is notifying 4.7 million individuals affected by the breach. The breach is thought to affect the majority of its customers; Blue Shield Had 4.5 Million Members as of 2022,
IT’s not immomedialy cleared Spokespeople for blue shield and google did not immediatily respond to requests for comment.
Blue shield is the latest healthcare company to Be Caught out by the use of Online Tracking TechnologiesOnline trackers are small snippets of code, often provided by tech giats, designed to collect information about a customers’ Browsing Activity by Being Embeded In Mobile Apps and WebSites. Tech and Social Media Companies are usually the sources of these trackers, as they relay on the data for advertising and to drive the mayor of their revenues.
Last Year, US Health Insurance Giant Kaiser Notified more than 13 million people That it has been sharing patients’ data with advertisers including Google, Microsoft and X, After Embedding Tracking Code on Its Website.
Several Other Emerging Healthcare Companies, Including Mental Health Startup Cerebral and Alcohol Recovery Startups Monument and TempestHave disclosed past breaches involving the sharing of patients’ personal and health information with advertising firms.
The breach at Blue Shield of California Currently Stands as the Larget Healthcare-Related Data Breach of 2025 So far, per the US health department’s office of Civil Rights.