U. of Iowa Health Care denies sharing patient data with Facebook, but are they right?

DataBreaches never accused U. of Iowa Health Care of sharing patient data with Facebook, but it seems that someone did. Clark Kaufmann reports:

The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics is denying that it shares any confidential patient information with Facebook.

Last week, lawyers for an Iowa woman, Eileen Yeisley, filed suit against UIHC in federal court for the alleged “intentional, reckless, and/or negligent disclosure” of confidential medical information to the social-media giant Facebook.

UHC issued a statement saying that they do not share protected health information with Meta or Facebook and that they will “review the lawsuit once received.” Maybe they should have waited to make that statement until after they reviewed the lawsuit, because according to the news report:

The lawsuit claims UIHC installed the computer coding — copies of which are included in the plaintiffs’ petition — for marketing purposes in an effort to bolster its profits.

Experts will undoubtedly look at that coding and say whether it does what the plaintiff alleges. And if it does, and if it is on those sites, then apart from the lawsuit, UHC may have a problem that it needs to remedy and to disclose.