Facebook Sent “Top Secret” Doctor To Hospitals For Patient Data Collection Scheme

Facebook sent a cardiologist to several major U.S. hospitals to pitch a scheme that would combine a patient’s medical file with user data collected by the beleaguered social media giant, in order to “figure out which patients might need special care or treatment,” reports CNBC.

The program, which “never progressed passed the planning phase” according to Facebook, was put on pause after the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal raised concerns over the company’s policies governing data collection and use.

Facebook’s pitch, according to two people who heard it and one who is familiar with the project, was to combine what a health system knows about its patients (such as: person has heart disease, is age 50, takes 2 medications and made 3 trips to the hospital this year) with what Facebook knows (such as: user is age 50, married with 3 kids, English isn’t a primary language, actively engages with the community by sending a lot of messages). –CNBC