• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Analysts expected oil to surge above $200 but China has quietly kept prices half of that—and can’t for much longer

2

Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military

3

Marc Lore’s robots make 500 burrito bowls an hour. A human can make 45

1

Analysts expected oil to surge above $200 but China has quietly kept prices half of that—and can’t for much longer

2

Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military

3

Marc Lore’s robots make 500 burrito bowls an hour. A human can make 45
Tech

Facebook Decides Now’s Not a Great Time to Harvest Patients’ Medical Data

By
David Meyer
David Meyer
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
David Meyer
David Meyer
Down Arrow Button Icon
April 6, 2018, 3:30 AM ET

Scandal-hit Facebook has pressed pause on a plan to combine patients’ medical data with information on them from their social networking activity.

According to CNBC, the company was as recently as last month talking to the likes of Stanford Medical School about setting up a data-sharing agreement for a research project with a focus on heart disease.

“This work has not progressed past the planning phase, and we have not received, shared, or analyzed anyone’s data,” Facebook told CNBC, which reported that the plan was put on hold following the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, and the subsequent revelations about Facebook’s data-sharing practices.

The plan would have seen health organizations hand over patient information with key details, such as the patient’s name, obscured. This information would have been matched with the patient’s Facebook records to see if there is any information in there that could help treatment—for example, if an elderly patient doesn’t seem to have many friends, they may require more at-home care following surgery.

According to the report, the matching would have been achieved through a technique called “hashing.” This essentially means using an algorithm to scramble a piece of data, such as a name, in a way that means no one can unscramble it—but if another piece of data is run through the same algorithm and you end up with the same garbled code, then the two pieces of original data must match. This is a “pseudonymization” rather than an anonymization technique, as it does leave data open to re-identification.

It’s not difficult to see why Facebook has paused this plan. The company is still reeling from the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the blows keep on coming.

On Wednesday, it admitted that the political consultancy may have gotten its hands on the data of 87 million Facebook users, rather than 50 million as previously thought. It also revealed that most of Facebook’s users probably had their public profile information scraped by malicious actors who used a tool that the social network has now removed.

“What we didn’t do until recently and what we are doing now is just take a broader view looking to be more restrictive in ways data could be misused,” Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said Thursday, in one of her first appearances since the Cambridge Analytica affair blew up.

Meanwhile, Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer told the Financial Times that the social network was now “being much more diligent about trying to understand upfront all the misuse and bad [use] cases” before it launches new products.

On top of all that, TechCrunch reported Friday that Facebook had removed messages sent by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top executives from the Facebook inboxes of their recipients, without telling the people whose inboxes were affected. And civil society groups in Myanmar have hit back at Zuckerberg’s claim that the company is able to use monitoring to stop hate speech messages spreading like wildfire through its services—they say such messages spread for days, leading to violence.

Even without Facebook’s current predicament, the history of big consumer tech companies dealing with medical data is not without blemish. Google’s DeepMind “artificial intelligence” operation made a deal with U.K. National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in 2015 that gave it access to the medical data of 1.6 million patients, in order to figure out ways of better monitoring kidney disease.

The British privacy regulator last year found the agreement was illegal, because patients wouldn’t have expected their information to be shared and used in this way.

About the Author
By David Meyer
LinkedIn icon
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Three ways that Asia’s enterprises are adopting AI—and where they are falling behind
CommentaryOracle
Three ways that Asia’s enterprises are adopting AI—and where they are falling behind
By Garrett IlgJune 11, 2026
1 hour ago
Dr. Shiv Rao speaks
Startups & VentureHealth
Abridge wants to be the operating system for medicine—and NVIDIA and Eli Lilly are helping build it
By Lily Mae LazarusJune 11, 2026
4 hours ago
Silicon Valley insiders warn U.S. defense supply chain is unprepared for modern warfare
AIBrainstorm Tech
Silicon Valley insiders warn U.S. defense supply chain is unprepared for modern warfare
By Sebastian HerreraJune 11, 2026
4 hours ago
Exclusive: Consumer device giant LG Electronics to launch blockchain to place and sell ads
CryptoBlockchain
Exclusive: Consumer device giant LG Electronics to launch blockchain to place and sell ads
By Jack Kubinec and Ben WeissJune 11, 2026
4 hours ago
As SpaceX goes public, a $100 billion shadow market faces a reckoning
Startups & VentureSpaceX
As SpaceX goes public, a $100 billion shadow market faces a reckoning
By Allie GarfinkleJune 11, 2026
5 hours ago
The real hurdle to enterprise AI isn’t fixing productivity KPIs. It’s ‘unlearning’ old habits, experts say
Future of WorkBrainstorm Tech
The real hurdle to enterprise AI isn’t fixing productivity KPIs. It’s ‘unlearning’ old habits, experts say
By Sebastian HerreraJune 11, 2026
5 hours ago

Most Popular

Analysts expected oil to surge above $200 but China has quietly kept prices half of that—and can’t for much longer
Energy
Analysts expected oil to surge above $200 but China has quietly kept prices half of that—and can’t for much longer
By Sasha RogelbergJune 10, 2026
1 day ago
Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military
Asia
Pentagon accuses Alibaba, Baidu and BYD, three of China's biggest companies, of supporting the Chinese military
By Kate O'Keeffe and BloombergJune 8, 2026
3 days ago
Marc Lore’s robots make 500 burrito bowls an hour. A human can make 45
Innovation
Marc Lore’s robots make 500 burrito bowls an hour. A human can make 45
By Amanda GerutJune 9, 2026
2 days ago
Costco CEO Ron Vachris rose from forklift driver to the C-suite without a college degree: ‘Don’t chase a title’ is the career advice that got him there
Success
Costco CEO Ron Vachris rose from forklift driver to the C-suite without a college degree: ‘Don’t chase a title’ is the career advice that got him there
By Preston ForeJune 8, 2026
3 days ago
Corporate America has been draining the world's water. Matt Damon's new campaign calls on Gap, Starbucks, and Amazon to help give it back
Environment
Corporate America has been draining the world's water. Matt Damon's new campaign calls on Gap, Starbucks, and Amazon to help give it back
By Catherina GioinoJune 9, 2026
2 days ago
Current price of oil as of June 10, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of June 10, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJune 10, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.