HealthEngine App Receives Widespread Criticism After Sharing Users Medical Data With Personal Injury Firms
There are a variety of apps and online services today that enable you to find or make an appointment with a healthcare professional. You can find them in use in various countries worldwide, there's Doctors On Demand, ZocDoc, BetterDoctor, First Opinion, and many others.
One of the biggest ones in Australia, with millions of users, is known as the HealthEngine app.
Some reports suggest that HealthEngine had been sharing daily lists of potential clients with law firms. Those firms would receive information about potential clients that might want to pursue personal or work injury claims.
Various users of the app had complained that they were receiving calls from personal injury law firms, after their information from HealthEngine was shared with them. But the company has suggested that they only passed along information for which they received consent from the users.
HealthEngine has said that the consent given from users in order to share that data, doesn't come from within their user policy, they say that it's derived from a pop-up form that the user sees at the time of booking, or it's given verbally to a consultant with the company.
HealthEngine maintains that users were able to opt out of giving their consent for that data to be shared, and that they would still be able to have access to the app.
However, users who complained about receiving calls allegedly said that they weren't aware that the information would ever be shared with any third parties.
They have said that they will no longer be sharing that user data with third parties; there won't be any more referrals to lawyers. They also say that they're going to remove the advertising from their website.
The company is also going to be getting rid of patient reviews for doctors after it's been alleged that they were caught removing negative reviews and replacing them with positive remarks. Previous reports suggest that more than 50 percent of the reviews had been edited in some manner. In an effort to try and rebuild trust with users, they are hoping that these changes are going to be enough.
Pics:
Pic 1 - Pixabay
Pic 2 - Pixabay
We can’t trust any big tech companies any more lol they’re sucking up all our info ?? Wth are they gunna do to us lol
Isn’t there a blockchain technology trying to decentralize health information? I wasn’t too excited about it when I first thought about it, but looking at this I can definitely see how important decentralizing healthcare information is going to be.
That's why I believe that blockchain is the future. I have the impression that people's awareness of data trading is growing (slowly but still) and they will finally understand that this technology can be good for them. I am keeping my fingers crossed for this.
Sad, but not very surprising. Especially the part about deleting negative reviews and replacing them with fake positive ones.
That is quite disappointing and a bad start . Like who can you even trust, it seems like a circle of connections being used against us. Do we even have our “rights”
George Carlin - You Don't Have Rights, You Have Privileges
I'm not surprised in the least.
Es bueno que siempre realicen estas investigaciones por el bien de los trabajadores y de las propias compañias @doitvoluntarily
Not all that surprising, really. Services like these make a fortune dealing with the information we provide. Not everyone uses these informations in a subtle fashion, though, as evidenced by this.
Lately you can not trust any of the companies and that is really disappointing, who can be trusted?