On Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission took action against alcohol addiction telehealth company Monument, affirming its promise to crack down on digital health companies’ misuse of personal health data.
Monument revealed health information to third parties including Meta and Google without users’ consent, the FTC alleged, while misleading users into thinking their health data was kept confidential. A proposed order to settle the allegations would ban the company from disclosing that sensitive data for advertising purposes, among other penalties.
The action followed a joint investigation by STAT and The Markup, which found that Monument was one of dozens of telehealth companies leaking sensitive health data through third-party trackers used to trail users across the internet and target advertising.