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Doctolib transmitted information about the search for a doctor to Facebook

2021-06-26T15:24:32.900Z


If someone looked for a urologist or a vasectomy via Doctolib, this and other data went to Facebook and another advertising platform. The transmission has now been stopped.


Enlarge image

Doctolib user

Photo: Ugo Padovani / Hans Lucas / imago images

The Berlin-based company Doctolib from the Digitalcourage association has just given the negative Big Brother Award for its appointment-making app - among other things because it also obtains data from doctors' practices from patients "who do not make appointments and not even have an account with Doctolib to have".

Now »mobilsicherheit.de« is following up on its own findings: Doctolib has also passed on user data to Facebook and Outbrain without making it sufficiently transparent.

Outbrain is a platform for online advertising whose customers include SPIEGEL.de.

It was about sensitive data that was not transmitted to Facebook and Outbrain with real names, but also not really anonymously.

The article from »mobilprüf.de« sums it up as follows: »You have testicular cancer?

Then Facebook now knows that too «.

Transmit search query together with identification number

In one of several tests with the Doctolib Android app in version 3.2.26, which has been available since the end of May, the experts »logged in to Doctolib, looked for a urologist and specified› vasectomy sterilization man consultation ‹as the reason for booking. We have also selected a doctor, requested an appointment and given it “privately insured” as the insurance status ”. All this information then landed on an Outbrain server, together with a unique identification number (ID) and the IP address used. The same applied to Facebook, only that Facebook uses its own ID.

Doctolib users have to actively consent to data processing before they can make an appointment via the app or the website.

But the team from »mobilprüf.de« considers the type of consent that Doctolib obtained at this point to be unrealistic and inadequate.

Users would not have been able to tell from this which data was being transferred to whom.

Doctolib has at least granted the data transfer and the poorly declared consent and demonstrably switched it off last weekend, reports »mobilsicherheit.de«.

According to its own statements, the company only wanted to measure the success of its own advertising campaigns.

"Why search words and information on the insurance status were also recorded could not be conclusively clarified," says the article.

In addition, Doctolib says it has "arranged for Facebook and Outbrain to delete all past data recorded via the cookies".

The site »mobilprüf.de« is a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Justice of iRights eV and the Institute for Technology and Journalism.

pbe

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-06-26

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