It's normal to seek online treatment and counseling to curb or completely stop alcohol use. However, similar services such as Monument and Tempest may have shared personal client data gathered with tracking tools with advertisers.
Sharing Private Patient Data
Monument and Tempest offer expert counseling and community support for those who want to curb or quit alcohol consumption. However, both companies may have been sharing client data like names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, insurance information, and more.
Monument, which acquired Tempest in 2022, claims that patient data are protected and are only used by its team. Aside from personal data, the company may have also shared responses to self-evaluations and drinking habits, according to The Verge.
The companies pointed to a breach in its pixel tracking tools which are included in the websites for advertising purposes. The Department of Health and Human Services has stated that health companies may be held liable when they violate client privacy through pixel tracking.
For context, pixel trackers are codes that are created by Meta, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, and more, and use those for their ads, emails, and websites. It can monitor what users fill out and click on a website, to make more specific ads for them.
In the disclosure from Monument, they expressed that they were unaware of the data being collected. They only found out that the tracking tools have been using the client information on the site since November 2017.
To try and resolve the issue, Monument stated that they have already stopped using most tracking tools by the end of 2022, with the keyword "most." They also claim to have fully disconnected them from the websites of Monument since late February 2023.
Previous Cases for Online Counseling
Monument and Tempest are not the first to be accused of sharing private patient data. BetterHelp, also known for its online counseling services, was said to have done the same thing, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
The counseling service allegedly shared details such as email addresses, IP addresses, and health questionnaire data. This led to the company being charged by the FTC, resulting in a settlement that cost 7.8 million.
The information shared is used by the companies for targeted ads, specifically BetterHelp's counseling service, as mentioned in The Verge. The FTC claims that the company's customer service is given scripts to assure the customer that their data is safe.
Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection Samuel Levine expressed that a person struggling with mental health issues and reaching out for help does so in a vulnerable state. They would expect that the company would respect their privacy as information is shared.
The settlement will be used to provide partial refunds to their affected customers from August 1st, 2017 to August 31st, 2020. They will also need the consent of the owner of the data before they can share it with third parties like Facebook or Snapchat.
