What records show about UNC Health's response to report of Meta pixel data collection
Documents obtained by 5 On Your Side show a minute-by-minute look at UNC Health’s search to figure out if their patient’s private information was being sent to Facebook’s parent company.
For months, 5 On Your Side has been digging into whether Meta has been collecting details about your medical records.
5 On Your Side first reported in December that several local hospitals, including UNC Health, were using Meta Pixels to collect marketing data.
But UNC Health says that collection did not include authenticated data. Meaning test results, messages to doctors, appointment records and anything else you can find on My Chart would be protected. However, now we know more about what was collected.
On June 16, news outlet The MarkUp posted a report about Meta’s pixel collecting patients information from hospital websites.
5 On Your Side made a public records request to UNC Health and obtained emails from the hours that followed the release of that report.
According to the emails, an IT manager told other top UNC Health officials he was not finding the pixels on UNC’s MyChart page, but UNChealthcare.org "lights up like a Christmas tree with them."
They said data being collected should not contain patient’s personal information, but could collect things people search for, including patient resources and the "find-a-doctor" tool.
UNC Health paused use of the pixels about 12 hours after the MarkUp’s article was published.
In the emails, the marketing company UNC Health uses said they always decline to send patient names, phone numbers, dates of birth and identification numbers to Meta when setting up pixels for their clients.
WakeMed and Duke University Hospital were also using the Meta Pixel on their sites.
WakeMed previously told patients, some of their medical information may have been disclosed.
Duke says protected health information was not shared from their site.
Both are facing lawsuits.
