The online service provider Doctolib arranges appointments with doctors and also arranges appointments in vaccination centers in Berlin. But as has now become known, the platform has forwarded sensitive data of its users to the online advertising providers Outbrain and Facebook.
The blog MobilSAFE had discovered in a test that Doctolib regularly forwarded search terms to the advertising companies that users had typed into the service. The terms were given an identifier, with the help of which they can be assigned to specific users in order to display personally tailored advertising.
Mobile-safe was able to show in the test that, for example, search terms such as vasectomy, sterilization, girls’ surgery or gynecologist were transmitted. Doctolib also passed on information about health insurance, in this case “privately insured”.
The data was apparently transferred to all users who had consented to the use of cookies when calling up the Doctolib offer.
Doctolib immediately deleted the function after Mobilicher discovered the data transmission. The advertising service Outbrain said in response to a BILD request that all user data had been deleted immediately after Doctolib had heard of the transmission.
Facebook stated that the data had already been intercepted and deleted when it entered the social network. It is against Facebook’s terms of use to share personal health information.
How many users were affected by the data transfer remains unclear. You cannot provide any information about this because you have no information about how many users had given their consent to the marketing cookies before the cookies were deleted, according to a BILD request.
According to Doctolib, users can no longer understand what data was passed on about them: “These data are no longer stored anywhere and can therefore no longer be formally queried,” explains Doctolib.
The service provider assures: “No data inserted into our services was passed on, such as information about the booked appointment, medical appointments, documents, video consultations or other medical data.”
If you call up the Doctolib offer now, you will still be informed that the site uses cookies. According to Doctolib, these are only cookies to protect the website and to measure its performance. Cookies for advertising purposes are no longer in use.
.