Health data transfered to Google, Amazon and Facebook

Websites, spezialized on health topics transfer information of website users to Google, Amazon and Facebook, as the Financial Times reports.

The transferred information are obtained through cookies and include medical symtoms and clinical pictures of the users.

Referring to the report of the Financial Times does the transfer take place without the express consent of the data subject, contrary to the Data Protection Law in the UK. Besides the legal obligations in the UK, the procedure of the website operators, using the cookie, contradicts also the legal requirements of the GDPR.

According to the requirements of the GDPR the processing of health data falls under Art. 9 GDPR and is a prohibition subject to permission, meaning, that the processing of health data is forbidden unless the data subject has given its explicit consent.

The report is also interesting considering the Cookie judgement of the CJEU (we reported). Based on the judgment, consent must be obtained for the use of each cookie.

Accordingly, the procedure of the website operators will (hopefully) change in order to comply with the new case law.