Headway Hit with Class Action Over Alleged Disclosure of Patient Info to Google

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A proposed class action alleges online therapy service Headway secretly shares with Google website visitors’ private data, including information about their mental health conditions.

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The 33-page case explains that Headway.co is a digital platform offered by defendant Therapymatch, Inc. to help patients find mental health providers in their insurance networks. According to the lawsuit, the company has embedded a small piece of code into each Headway webpage that tracks a user’s interactions as they navigate the site, and automatically sends these communications to Google without their knowledge or consent.

The complaint that this tracking technology, specifically Google Analytics code, exposes information about a patient’s medical concerns and conditions, the type of treatment they are requesting, their gender and ethnic preferences regarding therapists, the dates and locations of their medical appointments and the name of their therapist.

For instance, Google’s tracking tool is able to “intercept, eavesdrop upon, and collect” when a user enters certain search terms to connect with an “Asian” therapist who specializes in “anxiety and eating disorders,” provides “medication management” and is located near a specific address in “San Francisco, California,” the filing contends.

The suit further alleges that Headway fails to enable an opt-in IP anonymization feature, the absence of which allows Google to link a patient’s identity to their online activity using their IP address.

Per the filing, Google uses the information it collects from Headway patients to maintain and improve its services, develop new analytics and marketing services, measure the effectiveness of advertising and deliver targeted advertisements.

However, consumers who seek help from Headway have no way of knowing their private data is shared with Google and used for commercial purposes, as the defendant’s privacy policy falsely asserts that the company shares personal information with only “insurance companies or clearinghouses for claims purposes, with other health care providers for treatment or care coordination purposes, or with business partners” to assist Headway in offering its services, the case relays.

“Nowhere does Headway identify Google, or any other third-party interceptor, as a recipient of users’ private communications and confidential mental health information,” the lawsuit says, claiming that the company’s failure to provide consumers with adequate notification of its data-sharing practice violates state privacy law.

The case also claims that Headway was obligated under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) to keep users’ protected mental health information confidential.

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone in California who, during the applicable statute of limitations period, visited and used Headway.co and whose health information and/or other personal data was intercepted by, or disclosed to, Google through Google’s tracking technology embedded in the website.

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