A new class action lawsuit is asking a court to order Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital and corporations affiliated with Facebook to pay millions of dollars for allegedly allowing Facebook to track patient information through Northwestern’s patient scheduling portal.
On Aug. 10, attorneys Nick Wooten, of Conway, Arkansas, together with DC Law, of Austin, Texas, and Rusty Payton, of Payton Legal Group, of Chicago, filed suit in Chicago federal court against Northwestern Memorial and the Facebook-related corporate entities. Those Facebook defendants included Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook Holdings LLC, Facebook Operations LLC and Instagram LLC.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of named plaintiff Michael Krackenberger, of Skokie.
However, the lawsuit seeks to expand the action to include potentially thousands or even tens of thousands of others who used Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s patient portal to schedule medical appointments at Northwestern.
According to the lawsuit, Northwestern requires patients to create an account through its online portal and to use that portal to schedule appointments, interact with doctors and medical care providers, review medical records and request prescription drug refills.
According to the complaint, Krackenberger was among the patients who created an account with Northwestern, and used Northwestern’s patient portal to schedule appointments and view “sensitive medical information related to his care and treatment.”
However, the lawsuit alleges that “unbeknownst to” Krackenberger and the hospital’s other patients, Northwestern allowed Facebook computer tracker code known as Meta Pixel to “surreptitiously” gather information about patients using the portal.
The complaint alleges the Facebook-related companies then used that information “for their own revenue generating purposes including targeting advertising to” the patients.
The complaint does not include allegations concerning how Northwestern may have allegedly benefited from the alleged use of Meta Pixel in its portal.
The plaintiffs acknowledged in the complaint that Northwestern disclosed to patients at the time they created their accounts that the portal used Meta Pixel and allowed Meta Pixel to collect information on portal users.
However, the lawsuit claims that is insufficient, and the use of Meta Pixel still amounts to a violation of the patients’ privacy.
The lawsuit asserts Northwestern and the Facebook-affiliated defendants violated patient privacy rights under the Illinois Personal Information Protection Act, the Illinois Patient Rights Act, and federal wiretap and stored communications laws.
The plaintiffs said they are asking the court to award them more than $5 million for the alleged violation of those laws, plus punitive damages to “make them whole and properly punish” the hospital and the Facebook defendants for the alleged privacy violations.
The lawsuit seeks to expand the action to include a class of potentially many thousands of other Northwestern Memorial patients who used the portal in the past two years.