Mosaic Health System Discloses Website Visitors’ Info to Third Parties, Class Action Claims

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A proposed class action alleges Mosaic Health System and Mosaic Life Care secretly disclose to third parties the private health information of patients who visit MYMLC.com.

The 77-page lawsuit claims the healthcare corporations, who own numerous facilities in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa, have intentionally deployed tracking software and “automatic rerouting tools” on their web pages, such that the exact contents of patients’ interactions with MYMLC.com are sent to Google, Facebook and other third-party marketing companies. Per the case, the defendants’ alleged data sharing occurs without patients’ knowledge, authorization or consent.

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The complaint says that third parties use tracking pixels, tiny snippets of invisible source code embedded in websites, to collect data about MYMLC.com users, including the identities of their physicians, medical treatments, the hospitals they visited and their own identities. Facebook’s specific tool, known as the Metal pixel, is also embedded on the defendants’ website, the filing claims.

The case stresses that tracking pixels collect data points that reveal a website visitor’s identity, such as their IP address or cookies, small text files placed on a user’s browser that help advertising companies identify internet users and track their activities on third-party websites.

If a device’s IP address is hidden and cookies are blocked, tracking pixels can still identify a user through their “browser-fingerprint,” the complaint relays. Google explained in a 2019 blog post that third parties, using “tiny bits of information that vary between users, such as what device they have or what fonts they have installed,” can create a unique online “fingerprint” to identify a user across websites, the suit relays.

A fourth way tracking pixels can identify an MYMLC.com visitor is through their Facebook ID, “an identifying number string that is connected to a user’s Facebook profile,” the complaint contends. Per the suit, anyone with access to a Facebook ID can view a user’s corresponding Facebook profile.

The case alleges that the exposed patient data is then used by third-party businesses to enhance their machine-learning algorithms and boost their targeted advertising capabilities.

To add insult to injury, Mosaic Health System and Mosaic Life Care falsely assure website visitors that, unless they receives written permission to make disclosures, they are “required by law to maintain the privacy of your Protected Health Information,” the case says.

The lawsuit looks to cover Missouri citizens who are, or were, patients of Mosaic Health System or any of its affiliates, and who exchanged communications on MYMLC.com or any other Mosaic Health System-affiliated website that caused disclosures of personally identifiable information and communications to third parties, including (but not limited to) Facebook.

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