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We’re keen to allay any fears...
Facebook said Garlik and Watson had misunderstood the purpose of the tie-up, which allows users to more easily share information about disease prevention with their contacts on Facebook. In a prepared statement, Facebook also said it didn't share the data from social plugin partner sites such as NHS Choices with third parties.
Medical privacy is a crucial issue and following Mischa’s post we’re keen to allay any fears people might have around Facebook’s use of data associated with the Like button, which the NHS Choices website has chosen to adopt.The Like button allows people to share information that is important to them with their friends. It appears that Mischa is concerned with what Facebook could potentially do with the data we use to make this experience work. Facebook does not share your data with third parties. It is against Facebook’s terms to use this data for any purpose other than to create a more personalised experience on the web. In the same way that the NHS would not share you data, Facebook would not either.
On the NHS website, people are opting to raise awareness around illnesses that affect all of us and the Facebook Like button is a great way to help people spread the NHS’s education messages about early detection and prevention of such illnesses to their friends on Facebook.
When a person is logged into Facebook and visits a partner site that is using a social plugin, such as NHS Choices, Facebook can see technical information such as a person’s User ID, IP address and operating system. This is industry standard data that helps us customize the experience on the partner site for the person, such as showing what friends have liked or recommended. Our highest priority is to keep people in control of their information on Facebook. If a person decides they do not want a personalised experience on a partner site, they can log out of Facebook and we will not receive their User ID. We also delete this technical impression data within 90 days of receiving it, which is consistent with standard industry practice.
David Harley, senior research fellow at net security firm Eset, and a former NHS IT manager for five years, was unimpressed by these arguments, adding he could see no good reason for an NHS-produced medical information page to have a Like button. "I'd have thought there were ways of capturing hit data that don't involve Facebook at all, let alone risk allowing it pre-anonymized ID data," he said.
"While the actual risks may not be huge, the breach of principle is major. There is no reason I can see why the NHS, which is bound (or should be) by data legislation that's specific to UK healthcare as well as the more obvious legislation like the Data Protection Act, should have gone into reverse and exposed its customers to the attentions of a company which is obsessed with sharing information rather than protecting it.
Of course there are occasions where healthcare-related data, should be shared, but only with parties who have a right to it. Why does Facebook qualify, however trivial the data?"
"It may not be interested in a young mother's bingo addiction, but I have yet to see any proof that it can be trusted to protect data relating to access to a healthcare site from inappropriate sharing." ®
Bootnote
1Facebook confirmed Garlik's contention that it gets data on users visiting NHS Choices even if they are not logged into Facebook at the time.
"When a person is logged into Facebook and visits a partner site that is using a social plugin, Facebook can see technical information such as a person’s User ID, IP address and operating system. Note: we will still receive their IP address, operating system even if the user is logged out; we just won’t know their User ID," it said.
Users concerned about this on NHS Choices, or other Facebook partner sites, need to opt out of viewing social plugins, a feature that is enabled by default.
COMMENTS
This is completely wrong
A visit to the NHS website should be treated like a visit to the doctor's surgery, i.e. private. Instead data gets pushed out to Google and Facebook. I'm having a hard time thinking of another company which could treat people's personal data worse than these two do...
You couldn't make it up
There's only one icon that fits this. Have the NHS officials completely lost their minds? Did any of them have a mind to lose?
Why on earth would a web site that provides health advice need a "Like" button? Why would anybody want to share information about their diseases with a horde of Facebook users?
It sounds like this is another absurd attempt by the public sector to play the trendy vicar.
I, for one
cant effin wait to see the end of facebook and its dog....
My hatred for it is almost consuming but everywhere i go, i hear about someone who's wronged someone else because of what they wrote/said etc on effin facebook.
Dear facebbok, please, die, quietly and quickly and may you and your ilk never walk on the face of this planet again...
Facebook and the NHS, thanks a fucking bunch...
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