Meta Plugin Nabs Sensitive Data from Healthcare Websites
July 11, 2022
Never one to let privacy concerns stand in its way, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) has apparently been using its Meta Pixel plugin to collect some of the most delicate data from its healthcare clients. The Markup investigated the matter and shares the results in, “Facebook Is Receiving Sensitive Medical Information from Hospital Websites.” Reporters Todd Feathers, Simon Fondrie-Teitler, Angie Waller, and Surya Mattu tell us:
“A tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information—including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments—and sending it to Facebook. The Markup tested the websites of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America. On 33 of them we found the tracker, called the Meta Pixel, sending Facebook a packet of data whenever a person clicked a button to schedule a doctor’s appointment. The data is connected to an IP address—an identifier that’s like a computer’s mailing address and can generally be linked to a specific individual or household—creating an intimate receipt of the appointment request for Facebook.”
The investigation also found Meta Pixel installed on seven health systems’ patient portals, five of which they documented sending real, password-“protected” patient data straight to Facebook. The detailed article shares some examples of data they caught Pixel collecting and several requisite CYA statements from hospitals and Meta itself. It also explains why hashing is an inadequate, and even duplicitous, privacy measure.
Though Meta-book is not subject to HIPAA regulations, hospitals and healthcare systems certainly are. The authors report:
“Former regulators, health data security experts, and privacy advocates who reviewed The Markup’s findings said the hospitals in question may have violated the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The law prohibits covered entities like hospitals from sharing personally identifiable health information with third parties like Facebook, except when an individual has expressly consented in advance or under certain contracts. Neither the hospitals nor Meta said they had such contracts in place, and The Markup found no evidence that the hospitals or Meta were otherwise obtaining patients’ express consent.”
The authors are unsure how Meta is using this ill-gotten data, observing it could be for advertising, algorithm-training, or other profitable purposes. For its part, the company points to its health information filtering system that is supposed to block such sensitive data from its own grasp. Though, even it admits, that filter is “not yet operating with complete accuracy.” You don’t say. To their credit, several hospitals and health systems removed the plugin once the Markup showed them its findings. So some entities value patient privacy, or at least respect the threat of HIPAA-related prosecution. And it seems other enterprises never will.
Cynthia Murrell, July 11, 2022
The Google: A 20-Something with Digital Cancer?
July 9, 2022
I read a blog post called “Who Is Going To Replace Google For Us?” The write up, in my opinion, starts with the premise that Google is in big trouble. I like to think of the Google as struggling with digital cancer, not the fixable skin stuff but the not-so-slick pancreatic cancer.
The blog post states:
The primary search product no longer works for many things, it is no longer adjusted to fight SEO. They have allowed shopping to be dominated by near 60% Amazon links and search results for any kind of product are consumed by semi-fake comparison pages Amazon referral clickbait.
I also noted this comment:
The modern internet – for which Google by virtue of it’s near-monopoly status is responsible – falls far short of what 20th century science fiction thought it would be. There’s not a lot of information. There’s a lot of crappy goods being sold and a lot of ads. I occasionally find some good things, like agricultural extension websites, but there’s not a lot of genuine content that rises to the top.
I found this harsh. Employees and certain contractors can call a Googler. Oh, you are not in one of those categories. Well, think of the contact problem as an emulation of the AT&T-type approach to customer service. A “customer” spends big bucks. If not, you are not a “customer”; therefore, no customer service. This makes sense in the current business context I believe.
I liked the post. I would point out that Google wants to include links to Amazon because Amazon.com is not the go-to place for product information. The new wizard from Verity (remember those nifty security tokens and remarkable performance?) is going to do more of this shopping stuff. Why?
Amazon. Plus Google has problems with the TikTok thing. Also, Google faces a bit of management pressure from assorted Timnit-Gebru type situations, the absolute out of control wackiness of Google’s version of HAL, and the rascals in the European Union who are definitely not Googley.
Search is just one visible presentation of a certain digital issue. Incurable? Good question.
Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2022
IBM Smart Software and Technology: Will There Be a Double Fault?
July 9, 2022
It has been a few years since Wimbledon started using AI to engage fans and the media. The longstanding partnership between IBM and the venerable All England Lawn Tennis Club captured the Best Fan Engagement by a Brand trophy at the 2022 Sports Technology Awards. The “IBM Power Index with Watson,” “IBM Match Insights with Watson,” and “Personalized Recommendations and Highlights Reels” were their winners. Maybe Watson has finally found its niche. We learn what changes are in store this season in the company’s press release, “IBM Reveals New AI and Cloud Powered Fan Experiences for Wimbledon 2022.” The write-up specifies:
“New features for 2022 include:
* ‘Win Factors’ brings enhanced explainability to ‘Match Insights’: Building on the existing Match Insights feature of the Wimbledon app and Wimbledon.com, IBM is providing an additional level of explainability into what factors are being analyzed by the AI system to determine match insights and predictions. Win Factors will provide fans with an increased understanding of the elements affecting player performance, such as the IBM Power Index, court surface, ATP/WTA rankings, head-to-head, ratio of games won, net of sets won, recent performance, yearly success, and media punditry.
* ‘Have Your Say’ with a new interactive fan predictions feature: For the first time, users can register their own predictions for match outcomes on the Wimbledon app and Wimbledon.com, through the Have Your Say feature. They can then compare their prediction with the aggregated predictions of other fans and the AI-powered Likelihood to Win predictions generated by IBM.”
The “digital fan experiences” use a combination of on-premises and cloud systems. Developers have trained the machine-learning models on data from prior matches using Watson Studio and Watson Discovery. See the press release for more specifics on each feature.
Cynthia Murrell, July 9, 2022
Is Google a Giving Outfit? One Possible Example
July 9, 2022
I believe everything I read whilst loafing along the info highway. Here’s an example of a real news item which seems plausible, but is the information accurate? Who knows? Let’s consider that a tittle of truth lies therein. The article is “Google Allowed a Sanctioned Russian Ad Company to Harvest User Data for Months.” The write up asserts:
…As recently as June 23, Google was sharing potentially sensitive user data with a sanctioned Russian ad tech company owned by Russia’s largest state bank
The info comes from an outfit called Adalytics. The article continues:
Adalytics identified close to 700 examples of RuTarget receiving user data from Google after the company was added to a U.S. Treasury list of sanctioned entities on Feb. 24. The data sharing between Google and RuTarget stopped four months later on June 23, the day ProPublica contacted Google about the activity.
I believe in coincidences, particularly when real media, the Google, and the special action are inter-twined.
My thoughts this morning (July 2, 2022):
- I will probably hear on CSPAN at some point in the future: “Senator, thank you for the question. I don’t have knowledge of that. I will get back to you with the information you request.”
- Google is sufficiently disorganized, involved with personnel management issues, and dealing with media inquiries about it’s smart software become alive that the Googlers downstream did not get the memo.
- Google’s incentive plans reward benchmarks and upticks. Downticks like cutting off a revenue stream are not high on a Googler’s to do list.
Net net: I believe everything I read on the Internet. In this case, maybe this report from a firm of which I have never heard is an arrow in Googzilla’s eye. Maybe?
Stephen E Arnold, July 9, 2022
Dr. Google, Dr. Google, Emergency, Emergency
July 8, 2022
The United States’s healthcare system is a giant mess controlled by drug makers, pharmacies, insurance companies, hospitals, and others who benefit from the system. The country spends 17% of its GDP on healthcare. There is a lot of money to be made in American healthcare and big tech companies know it. The Economist explains how, “Alphabet Is Spending Billions To Become A Force In Health Care.” The five big tech companies have invested over $3 billion and probably more. These investments range from Amazon’s telemedicine and online pharmacy, the health features on Apple’s smartwatch, Microsoft has health-related cloud computing offerings, and Meta’s reality-reproducing releasing fitness-related features.
Google’s parent company Alphabet is making the most ambitious moves in healthcare. Between 2019 and 2021 Alphabet more than one hundred deals in life sciences and healthcare with venture capital funds. In 2022, Alphabet has so far spent $1.7 billion in advancing health technology and science. Alphabet is using the same business tactics as in the past: throwing lots of money at projects and seeing what develops.
Alphabet has plans for wearables, health records, health-related AI, and extending human life. Google purchased Fitbit in 2019 for $2.1 billion and the company designed a feature that monitors the heart for irregularities. The FDA approved it. With this approval, Google hopes it will also see the same for its Pixel Watch, Pixel phone, and Google Nest.
Alphabet also wants to increase transparency in electronic health records:
“Google is also giving health records another whirl. The new initiative, called Care Studio, is aimed at doctors rather than patients. Google’s earlier efforts in this area were derailed in part by hospitals’ sluggishness in digitizing their patient records. ‘That problem has mostly gone away but another has emerged,’ says Karen DeSalvo, Google’s health chief—‘the inability of different providers’ records to talk to each other.’ Dr DeSalvo has been vocal about the need for greater interoperability since her days in the
Obama administration, where she was in charge of coordinating American health information technology. Until that happens, Care Studio is meant to act as both translator and repository (which is, naturally, searchable).”
The company has already made headway with AI, such as AlphaFold-software that predicts protein structures and Isomorphic Labs that will accelerate and cheapen drug discovery. As for stopping the aging process, subsidiary Verily partnered with L’Oréal to study skin biology. Its other subsidiary Calico received 42.5 billion from AbbVie to study age-related diseases.
Alphabet faces many roadblocks, such as governments, government data that is difficult for AI to read, market competition, and general difficulties. Alphabet probably will not solve the mystery of death.
Whitney Grace, July 8, 2022
IBM Seeks to Avoid Groundhog Day in AI/ML
July 8, 2022
How do you deliver the killer AI/ML system? Via news releases and PR perhaps?
The Next Web claims that, “IBM’s Human-Centered Approach Is The Only Big Tech Blueprint AI Startups Should Follow.” Author Tristan Greene reminds readers that IBM’s initials stand for International Business Machines and he met the company’s first chief AI officer Seth Dobrin. Dobrin said IBM would never focus on consumer AI, i.e. virtual assistants and selfie apps.
Dobrin also stated that IBM’s goal is to create AI models that improve human life and provide value for its clients and partners. It is apparently not hard to do if you care about how individuals will be affected by monetized models. He compared these models to toys:
“During a discussion with the Financial Times’ Tim Bradshaw during the conference, Dobrin used the example of large-parameter models such as GPT-3 and DALL-E 2 as a way to describe IBM’s approach.
He described those models as “toys,” and for good reason: they’re fun to play with, but they’re ultimately not very useful. They’re prone to unpredictability in the form of nonsense, hate speech, and the potential to output private personal information. This makes them dangerous to deploy outside of laboratories.
However, Dobrin told Bradshaw and the audience that IBM was also working on a similar system. He referred to these agents as “foundational models,” meaning they can be used for multiple applications once developed and trained.”
IBM takes a human approach to its projects. Instead of feeding its AI datasets that could contain offensive information, IBM checks the data first before experimenting. That way the AI is already compliance ready and there will not be any bugs to work out later (at least the prejudice type). IBM is also focused on outcomes, not speculation, which is not how the tech giants work.
IBM wants to withstand an AI winter that could come after the fancy lights, parlor tricks, and flashy PR campaigns are in the past. Human-centered AI technologies, as Dobrin believes, will last longer and provide better services. IBM is also dedicated to sustainability.
IBM is green and wants to create better products and services before launch? It sounds better than most, but can they deliver?
Whitney Grace, July 8, 2022
Substack: Hones Its Focus
July 8, 2022
Substack is a blogging platform which makes monetization easy. The New York Times, the outfit which purchased Wordle, illustrated where it would spend its acquisition dollars: A click machine egame. Why not Substack? Maybe the Gray Lady has an instinct that selling the branded writing of former laborers in publishing’s vineyard was not a good idea.
“Substack Is Laying of 14% of Its Staff” explains:
Many media companies are anticipating headwinds in the coming months as the broader economy shows signs of strain.
Ah, ha. Headwinds.
Substack has to do some adulting to control its cash outflows. The result is:
an effort to conserve cash amid an industry wide funding crunch for start-ups.
What’s the New York Times’ strategy? Write about outfits which sell words whilst hunting for apps which generate traffic.
Real news, star journalists and writers, and compelling content? Nope. The word of the day “crash.”
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2022
Akn Unfindable Search Utillity: Wild Spelling and Naming Idea
July 7, 2022
I like to check out new Web search systems. Most are little more than recycled versions of Dogpile.com, one of the most Abe Lincoln metasearch systems. A metasearch system uses hits from other search systems, possibly adds a bit of Vivisimo-type special sauce, and outputs results and rather crazy marketing materials.
The write up “This Badass Tool Makes Advanced YouTube Searches a Breeze” states:
This tool also allows you to perform advanced search on Google, DuckDuckGo, Twitter, and Reddit.
But the article is over the moon about the utility of the system when searching for content in Newton Minnow’s nightmare, YouTube. I learned:
I [the author of the article] think this cool tool is better suited to YouTube.
Let’s try to find the system using its name, ä1. Try plugging the ä1 into Google, and what do you get? I received hits for services wildly unrelated to search and retrieval:
What about Bing, the Microsofties’ wonderful, but small, search system:
Yep, childhood disease.
What about Yandex? No joy.
Let’s search for the ä1 site on the ä1 site. What do we get? Google results and no ä1 search overlay or service.
Net net: Innovators, use names which can be searched. (Not every one knows how to put the a with acne into a search box. Besides, most search systems discard such silliness as dots, checks, and circumflexes. Intellectual niceties are not part of the plan.) Pain in the a$$, not bad a$$ in my opinion.
If you want to try out the all-in-one “system” yourself, here’s the url: https://ä1.com.
Tip: How about a findable name?
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2022
Management Theory: Zucking for Efficiency
July 7, 2022
I read “Mark Zuckerberg: We’re Turning Up the Heat at Meta So Employees Will Quit.” I wonder if the blue chip consulting firms — once some of their legal problems subside will embrace Zucking? “Zucking” is, according to the article, the new management mantra at the estimable social media company. Not long ago, imitation became the engine of innovation at the firm: A Discord clone, the TikTok envy resolver, and big boy decision to step back from some high school science club projects. Now, according to the cited article:
Facebook parent Meta wants to cut ties with workers who can’t meet newly raised performance expectations as the company prepares for an economic downturn…
Does anyone remember MySpace? Is this the specter of past social media high fliers accepting the idea of gravity. I am thinking gravity of legal situations, gravity of some advertising customers, and the Jupiter pull of TikTok attracting former Zuckbookers the way our French bulldog does fleas, ticks, and mud. Unstoppable? For sure when French bulldogs are in the woods.
The write up adds another less than positive observation:
Zuckerberg indicated that Meta plans to slow its hiring plans for engineers by at least 30% this year – adding roughly 6,000 or 7,000 workers rather than the 10,000 it initially expected to hire. Some roles that are currently empty will stay unfilled as Meta dials up pressure on current employees.
Wow, a new management concept to galvanize companies finding themselves in a storm: Zucking. When will Zuck Management Practices become a book? Oh, how is that investigation of a former senior manager going? Efficiently I presume.
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2022
EU High-Tech Laws: Now How about Enforcement?
July 6, 2022
I read a few of the dozens and dozens of posts about the European Union’s Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. A representative story comes from the “trust” outfit Reuters. “EU Lawmakers Pass Landmark Tech Rules, But Enforcement a Worry” states:
EU lawmakers gave the thumbs up on Tuesday to landmark rules to rein in tech giants such as Alphabet unit Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft, but enforcement could be hampered by regulators’ limited resources.
Note the “but”.
Several observations:
First, have you ever visited a shared common space at a university. Remember the signs: “Clean up” and “Put trash in receptacle.” How did those work out? The new regulations may have similar impact.
Second, legal eagles defending tech giants against a legal claim are very good at finding ways to delay, put red herrings in the court’s lunch room fridge, and discerning legal nuances overlooked by legal eagles not compensated to land, root, and swoop on prey.
Third, big tech companies have been doing their best to operate autonomously for decades. Do senior executives know what happens when a new service becomes available? Here’s the answer: “Commissioner, thank you for asking that question. I will have to get back to you with the details you request.”
Yeah, regulation arrives a day late and hundreds of millions of euros for crime analysts and investigators.
Stephen E Arnold, July 6, 2022
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