TY - GEN
T1 - Several Online Pharmacies Leak Sensitive Health Data to Third Parties
AU - Carlsson, Robin
AU - Rauti, Sampsa
AU - Mickelsson, Sini
AU - Mäkilä, Tuomas
AU - Heino, Timi
AU - Pirjatanniemi, Elina
AU - Leppänen, Ville
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - As the demand for digital services keeps growing, online pharmacies have become a very important part of essential digital services. When sensitive personal data such as medicine orders are processed, privacy issues become increasingly important. In this paper, we take a look at personal data delivered to third parties in 20 Finnish online pharmacies. More specifically, we study whether the data on prescription medicine orders is leaked out to third-party analytics services. Our findings reveal that 14 (70%) of studied pharmacies send out information about the customers intending to order prescription medicines to third parties, and 7 (35%) of the pharmacies even leak the data about the specific prescription medicine a specific customer is ordering. We also discuss implications of the data leaks and give suggestions on how this alarming state of affairs can be alleviated.
AB - As the demand for digital services keeps growing, online pharmacies have become a very important part of essential digital services. When sensitive personal data such as medicine orders are processed, privacy issues become increasingly important. In this paper, we take a look at personal data delivered to third parties in 20 Finnish online pharmacies. More specifically, we study whether the data on prescription medicine orders is leaked out to third-party analytics services. Our findings reveal that 14 (70%) of studied pharmacies send out information about the customers intending to order prescription medicines to third parties, and 7 (35%) of the pharmacies even leak the data about the specific prescription medicine a specific customer is ordering. We also discuss implications of the data leaks and give suggestions on how this alarming state of affairs can be alleviated.
KW - Data concerning health
KW - Network traffic analysis
KW - Online pharmacies
KW - Web privacy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85187708863&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-45642-8_16
DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-45642-8_16
M3 - Published conference proceeding
AN - SCOPUS:85187708863
SN - 9783031456411
T3 - Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems
SP - 164
EP - 175
BT - Information Systems and Technologies - WorldCIST 2023
A2 - Rocha, Alvaro
A2 - Adeli, Hojjat
A2 - Dzemyda, Gintautas
A2 - Moreira, Fernando
A2 - Colla, Valentina
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
T2 - 11th World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies, WorldCIST 2023
Y2 - 4 April 2023 through 6 April 2023
ER -