Several Online Pharmacies Leak Sensitive Health Data to Third Parties
Pysyvä osoite
Verkkojulkaisu
Tiivistelmä
As the demand for digital services keeps growing, online pharmacies have become a very important part of essential digital services. When sensitive personal data such as medicine orders are processed, privacy issues become increasingly important. In this paper, we take a look at personal data delivered to third parties in 20 Finnish online pharmacies. More specifically, we study whether the data on prescription medicine orders is leaked out to third-party analytics services. Our findings reveal that 14 (70%) of studied pharmacies send out information about the customers intending to order prescription medicines to third parties, and 7 (35%) of the pharmacies even leak the data about the specific prescription medicine a specific customer is ordering. We also discuss implications of the data leaks and give suggestions on how this alarming state of affairs can be alleviated.
Sarja
Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems