US healthcare marketplaces shared citizenship and race data with ad tech giants
A Bloomberg investigation revealed that nearly all U.S. state-run health insurance marketplaces shared applicants' personal data, including citizenship and race, with major tech companies like Google, Meta, and TikTok through embedded tracking pixels. These trackers, often used for analytics and advertising, were found to be improperly collecting sensitive information due to misconfigurations on government websites. The issue has prompted some states, including Washington, D.C. and Virginia, to pause or remove certain trackers in response.
- ▪Almost all of the 20 U.S. state government-run health insurance marketplaces shared applicant data with advertising and tech companies.
- ▪New York’s health exchange shared information about whether applicants had incarcerated family members, while D.C.'s exchange shared data on race, sex, email, phone number, and country identifiers.
- ▪TikTok's pixel tracker on D.C.'s site inconsistently redacted race data, and Virginia removed Meta's tracker after it shared ZIP codes.
- ▪Washington, D.C. paused its TikTok tracker, and Virginia removed Meta's tracker following the investigation.
- ▪Over seven million Americans purchased health insurance this year through state exchanges, highlighting the scale of potential data exposure.
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In Brief Posted: 7:30 AM PDT · May 4, 2026 Image Credits:Filo / Getty Images Zack Whittaker US healthcare marketplaces shared citizenship and race data with ad tech giants 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.
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