Data Security Risks of Mobile Health Apps Prompt Joint FTC/HHS Letter

The FTC and HHS have teamed up on a campaign about the privacy and security risks associated with online tracking technologies integrated into mobile health apps and websites with a letter to 130 hospital systems and telehealth providers.

The joint letter, sent under the banner of HHS’s Office of Civil Rights points out that “these tracking technologies gather identifiable information about users as they interact with a website or mobile app, often in ways which are not avoidable by and largely unknown to users.”

Signaling its concern with the issue earlier this year, on May 17, the FTC announced that it had charged the developer of the fertility app Premom with deceiving users by sharing their sensitive personal information with third parties, including two China-based firms, disclosed users’ health data to AppsFlyer and Google, and failed to notify consumers of these unauthorized disclosures in violation of the Health Breach Notification Rule.

The commission issued a warning that the increasing use of consumers’ biometric information, including those powered by machine learning, raises “significant consumer privacy and data security concerns” and “the potential for bias and discrimination.

Read the joint letter here.

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