Several Online Pharmacies Leak Sensitive Health Data to Third Parties - UTU Research Portal

A4 Refereed article in a conference publication

Several Online Pharmacies Leak Sensitive Health Data to Third Parties

Authors: Carlsson, Robin; Rauti, Sampsa; Mickelsson, Sini; Mäkilä, Tuomas; Heino, Timi; Pirjatanniemi, Elina; Leppänen, Ville

Editors: Rocha Alvaro, Adeli Hojjat, Dzemyda Gintautas, Moreira Fernando, Colla Valentina

Conference name: World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies

Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH

Publishing place: Cham

Publication year: 2024

Journal: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems

Book title : Information Systems and Technologies: WorldCIST 2023, Volume 1

Series title: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems

Volume: 799

First page : 164

Last page: 175

ISBN: 978-3-031-45641-1

eISBN: 978-3-031-45642-8

ISSN: 2367-3370

eISSN: 2367-3389

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45642-8_16

Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: No Open Access

Publication channel's open availability : Partially Open Access publication channel

Web address : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45642-8_16

Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/387704148

Self-archived copy's licence: other license

Self-archived copy's version: Final draft

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

Data concerning health, network traffic analysis, online pharmacies, Web privacy

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Springer_Several-Online_Pharmacies.pdf

Funding information in the publication:
This research has been funded by Academy of Finland project 327397, IDA - Intimacy in Data-Driven Culture.