{"id":283362,"date":"2026-06-28T03:26:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/28\/privacy-commissioner-finds-health-service-providers-breached-privacy-through-tracking-pixels-smbtech\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T03:26:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:26:00","slug":"privacy-commissioner-finds-health-service-providers-breached-privacy-through-tracking-pixels-smbtech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/28\/privacy-commissioner-finds-health-service-providers-breached-privacy-through-tracking-pixels-smbtech\/","title":{"rendered":"Privacy Commissioner Finds Health Service Providers Breached Privacy Through Tracking Pixels \u2013 SMBtech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smbtech.au\/news\/privacy-commissioner-finds-health-service-providers-breached-privacy-through-tracking-pixels\/\">Privacy Commissioner Finds Health Service Providers Breached Privacy Through Tracking Pixels \u2013 SMBtech<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smbtech.au\/news\/privacy-commissioner-finds-health-service-providers-breached-privacy-through-tracking-pixels\/\">https:\/\/smbtech.au\/news\/privacy-commissioner-finds-health-service-providers-breached-privacy-through-tracking-pixels\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-06-28 03:26:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"smbtech.au\">smbtech.au<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Australian Privacy Commissioner has found that health service providers Medmate Australia and Monash IVF interfered with the privacy of individuals whose sensitive information was collected via third-party tracking pixels embedded in their websites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The two determinations conclude a year-long investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) into how the companies collected sensitive information on their websites, which provide telehealth and fertility services respectively.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Privacy Commissioner\u2019s decision establishes that using tracking pixels to monitor visitors to health-related websites, and then targeting them with advertising on social media platforms, amounts to a collection of sensitive information for which the website provider must obtain users\u2019 consent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAustralians have become accustomed to pervasive online tracking and targeted advertising, but that doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re comfortable with it,\u201d Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind told media. \u201cIn particular when it comes to targeted advertising based on sensitive data, our community attitudes research shows that 9 in 10 Australians consider it neither fair nor reasonable to be targeted on the basis of their sensitive health data.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kind added that the decision makes clear that tracking technology must still comply with the Privacy Act.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat means website providers must obtain consent where they\u2019re using tracking pixels to collect sensitive information, such as data on health, political opinions, race or ethnicity,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"what-the-oaics-inspection-found\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What the OAIC\u2019s inspection found<\/h3>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Published alongside the determinations is a separate report based on the OAIC\u2019s inspection of 50 health service provider websites, conducted in October and November 2024. The websites spanned helpline and mental health services, health services for children and young people, pharmaceuticals and health services including insurance, fertility and abortion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of the 50 websites scanned, 96 per&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/smbtech.au\/news\/privacy-commissioner-finds-health-service-providers-breached-privacy-through-tracking-pixels\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Privacy Commissioner Finds Health Service Providers Breached Privacy Through Tracking Pixels \u2013 SMBtech https:\/\/smbtech.au\/news\/privacy-commissioner-finds-health-service-providers-breached-privacy-through-tracking-pixels\/ Publish&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-283362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-privacy","tag-tracking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}