Class Action Says University of Maryland Medical Center Shares Website Visitors’ Info with Facebook, Others

New to ClassAction.org? Read our Newswire Disclaimer

A proposed class action lawsuit claims the University of Maryland Medical System Corporation secretly transmits the personal data of UMMS.org visitors to numerous third parties without consent.

Want to stay in the loop on class actions that matter to you? Sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.

The 85-page amended complaint says that the defendant—which does business as the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) and operates hospitals, primary and urgent care centers, and specialty practices across the state—has embedded into its websites a host of coded tracking tools that are designed to capture and disclose patients’ private data to third parties, who “exploit that information for advertising purposes.”

The filing argues that by using such web-tracking tools, which can capture every movement a visitor makes on a website, UMMC has violated state law and illegally shared patients’ personally identifiable information with third-party marketing companies, including Facebook, Google, DoubleClick Digital Marketing and ShareThis.

Per the case, patients can use UMMS.org and the defendant’s affiliate websites to access the patient portal, search for physicians, schedule appointments, review treatment and care options, pay bills and more. Despite the defendant’s “Notice of Privacy Practices” and privacy policy, which promise never to share users’ information for marketing purposes without consent, the websites purportedly utilize various data collection tools, including the Meta pixel, Google Analytics code, Google DoubleClick and Google AdWords, to secretly intercept and record visitor data and interactions on each web page, the suit charges.

Per the lawsuit, if a patient, for instance, selects the “Find A Doctor” feature on UMMS.org in order to book an appointment or search for a physician, the tracking pixels can collect and transmit directly to third parties vast amounts of personal information, including the patient’s physical location, medical concerns, search requests, data on the providers searched, URLs, IP address, unique Facebook ID and any real-time communications with doctors.

These tracking codes, which are “purposefully camouflaged to remain invisible to users,” allow third parties like Facebook and Google to obtain a “vast repository of personal data about patients—all without their knowledge or consent,” the case contends. According to the complaint, UMMC knew that by embedding the Meta pixel in particular, it was enabling Facebook to capture and use patients’ personal health information for targeted marketing.

“While the bargain may have benefited [UMMC] and Facebook, it also betrayed the privacy rights of [patients],” the filing argues.

The plaintiff, a Maryland resident and former UMMC patient, visited UMMS.org in December 2021, the lawsuit says. By doing so, “intimate details” about the woman’s medical treatments and concerns were allegedly transmitted to unauthorized third parties. According to the case, the plaintiff neither saw any indication on the website that her information was being disclosed nor consented to such disclosure.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone residing in Maryland who is or was a patient of UMMC or any of its affiliates and exchanged communications via UMMC’s websites, including UMMS.org, any other affiliated website and/or UMMC’s patient portal.

The complaint embedded below is an amended version of a case initially filed on January 23, 2023 in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Maryland.

Get class action lawsuit news sent to your inbox – sign up for ClassAction.org’s free weekly newsletter here.