Duke University Health System and WakeMed Health asked a United States Federal Court on 8th November (Tuesday) to dismiss the lawsuit accusing them of sharing sensitive medical data with Meta/Facebook by using Meta Pixel on their website, newsobserver.com reported. The lawsuit filed by two lead plaintiffs Kim Naugle and Afrika Williams argued that this violated a number of state and federal laws. What is Meta Pixel? Meta Pixel is a javascript code which allows tracking of users visiting a website. The website operator can track various things like which page of the website the user visits; for example, it can track if the user clicks on the web page giving information about cancer or the user clicks on the button which allows one to consult a gynaecologist. What did Duke and WakeMed say? According to news organisation WRAL, Duke denies sharing any data with Meta at all. A Duke spokesperson said, "Duke University Health System values the privacy of its patients’ medical information. DUHS has investigated the use of the Meta Pixel on our website and patient portal and has determined that DUHS did not transmit any of its patients’ protected health information to Meta.” WakeMed argued that "the lawsuit’s breach of contract claim does not hold up because it failed to say that Naugle was aware of its privacy policies", according to newsobserver.com. WakeMed also said that of their organisation has only been named 6 times in the 216 paragraphs of the complaint. WakeMed's data-sharing history This is not…
