The Markup found that one-third of Newsweek’s Top 100 hospitals let Meta’s Pixel tracking tool collect patient data on their web sites, likely violating HIPAA privacy protection of medical data. Tracked clicks of doctor appointment scheduling shared doctors’ names, service search information, drop-down selects and patient identifiers.
The anti-disinformation code to protect against false information has been released by the EU Commission. It is designed to protect against the social media and search engine algorithms that amplify click-bait messaging and proliferate false beliefs. Hopes were high this EU rule would force Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others to rein in the dangerous practice, but NewsGuard, which researches veracity of sites, and other privacy advocates fear that compliance is optional. The concern is many companies can’t be trusted to place the public good over their own profit. NewsGuard noted that so far Microsoft is the only major player that has committed to the measure.
Canada’s government introduced the Digital Charter Implementation Act, a multipronged law intended to give individuals more control over how data is used, provide strict rules on use of AI, and boost enforcement of violations. Critics note it doesn’t limit user data collection, other than for minors. The law would, however, provide Canada’s Privacy Commissioner with broader powers to stop a company’s data collecting, and issue large fines for non-compliance, so hopefully it can be strengthened on its way to passage.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.