Almost all of the 20 U.S. state government-run health insurance marketplaces shared residents’ application information with advertising and tech giants, including Google, LinkedIn, Meta, and Snap, according to a new investigation by Bloomberg.
The report drives home the privacy problems created by pixel-sized trackers, which allow website owners to collect information about their visitors, often for web analytics and identifying bugs. A common tool in digital advertising, these trackers also allow the collection of personal information if misconfigured and placed on websites that contain sensitive content, such as healthcare data.
Per Bloomberg, New York’s health insurance exchange shared information with several tech companies about a person’s application, including whether they provided details about whether they have incarcerated family members.
The health insurance exchange for Washington, D.C. also asked residents about the person’s sex and race, which TikTok’s pixel tracker attempted to redact. Some races were masked and others were not, the publication reported. A spokesperson for the Washington, D.C. exchange told Bloomberg that residents’ email address, phone number, and country identifiers were also shared with TikTok.
Washington, D.C. paused its rollout of the TikTok tracker, and Virginia removed the Meta tracker from its website after Bloomberg found it was sharing residents’ ZIP codes with the tech giant.
This is not a new problem, and has previously caught out telehealth startups and healthcare giants alike. Several companies and healthcare giants have had to notify millions that they inadvertently collected and shared their health information with tech giants, whose profits are derived from using consumer data for advertising.
But Bloomberg’s investigation shows that these pixel trackers can affect large swathes of the population when placed on government websites. The publication noted that more than seven million Americans purchased health insurance for this year through a state health insurance exchange.
The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in Zamfara State is heading for a crisis ahead of its fresh primary election to select the party's candidate for the Kaura Namoda/Birnin Magaji Federal Constituency.
Recall that the Court of Appeal had ordered a fresh primary in the constituency.
In what appears to signal the beginning of a brewing crisis within the Zamfara APC, an aspirant, Hassan Dangaladima, has petitioned two organs of the party over the actions of its National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda.
In the petition sighted by DAILY POST on Tuesday, which has since gone viral, Dangaladima levelled several allegations against the APC National Chairman.
Chief among his allegations is that Yilwatda unilaterally constituted the committee to conduct the fresh primary without recourse to the National Working Committee (NWC), which he heads.
"Pursuant to the said court order, the National Chairman purported to nominate and approve a committee to conduct the rescheduled primary election.
"The said nomination was made unilaterally by the National Chairman; no meeting of the National Working Committee was convened for that purpose."
The petitioner also alleged that his main rival for the ticket, Honourable Aminu Sani Jaji, is not a card-carrying member of the party.
The petition urged the APC National Executive Committee, NEC, to halt the conduct of the fresh primary and appoint a new set of individuals to conduct the exercise.
However, in response to the petition, the APC National Chairman, through his media aide, Abimbola Tooki, dismissed the allegations as baseless.
According to the party chairman, the committee was properly constituted, contrary to the petitioner's claim.
DAILY POST reports that the Zamfara State Governor, Dauda Lawal recently defected to the APC. President Bola Tinubu's re-election campaign Director-General, Abdulaziz Yari, is also from Zamfara State.
The National Chairman of the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, says the party is in the 2027 election race to win and not to make numbers.
Baba-Ahmed made this statement at a strategic retreat organised for the party's leadership and candidates.
He charged the party's candidates to go out and convince Nigerians that PRP deserves their trust and their votes in 2027.
According to him, the party has the best presidential candidate in Donald Duke, adding that history and character have moulded him to lead Nigeria out of its current challenges to a deserved status of affluence, security and unity.
He also said that Duke's running mate, Malam Sule Mohammed, is a study in principled loyalty, excellence in personal and professional life and unparalleled humility, which is tragically rare in current leaders.
Baba-Ahmed said the party also has governorship candidates who will be models of competent leadership, integrity and courage, stressing that they are candidates who will embody service, sacrifice and humility.
"We are PRP. We're in the 2027 race to win not to make numbers. We are products of a great tradition which insists that Nigeria can be great enough for all those who work honestly, and a nation which has the same place for the weak and the vulnerable as it has for those who are trusted with power or possess wealth," Baba-Ahmed said.
According to him, the party is under no illusions that its tasks will be easy, stating that the party will be competing in very hostile environments where incumbents fear change, while PRP champions it.
He said the party will find resistance from politicians who bribe the people for their future, while PRP asks for trust and the courage to choose quality and integrity.
On his part, the party's presidential candidate, Donald Duke, took a swipe at the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, saying it is enjoying too much advantage when it comes to campaign visibility.
According to him, opposition parties are finding it hard to get venues and places to put their adverts as the 2027 elections draw near.
He said the problem is making it harder and harder for opposition candidates to reach voters in different parts of the country.