Blue Shield of California shared private health data of 4.7M members with Google for years

Healthcare insurer Blue Protect of California has notified 4.7 million people of a possible information breach after unknowingly sharing sufferers’ protected well being info with Google since 2021.

“On February 11, 2025, Blue Protect found that, between April 2021 and January 2024, Google Analytics was configured in a manner that allowed sure member information to be shared with Google’s promoting product, Google Adverts, that possible included protected well being info,” Blue Protect stated in its discover.

“Google might have used this information to conduct targeted advert campaigns again to these particular person members. We wish to reassure our members that no unhealthy actor was concerned, and, to our data, Google has not used the data for any goal apart from these advertisements or shared the protected info with anybody.”

Blue Protect used Google Analytics to trace members’ use of sure Blue Protect web sites. It stated it “severed the connection” to Google Adverts and Google Analytics in January 2024, a 12 months earlier than it realized of the years-long information assortment.

The well being insurer stated the data which will have been impacted contains one’s insurance coverage plan identify, kind and group quantity, in addition to private particulars like affected person identify, gender, location, household measurement and affected person monetary accountability.

Blue Protect-generated distinctive IDs for members’ on-line accounts, info associated to medical declare service dates and suppliers, and search inputs and outcomes from the “Discover a Physician” characteristic have been additionally shared.

The well being insurer stated Social Safety numbers, driver’s license numbers, and banking or bank card info weren’t disclosed.

Blue Protect filed a legally required disclosure with the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies on April 9, stating that 4.7 million people have been affected by the breach. As of final 12 months, the corporate reported having 4.8 million members.

THE LARGER TREND

Verizon launched its 2025 Information Breach Investigations Report this week, which revealed that healthcare stays a favourite goal of attackers.

One other firm that skilled a knowledge breach is multinational pc expertise firm Oracle, which has skilled two separate information breaches in current months, one affecting Oracle Well being prospects and one other stated to have resulted from an exploit focusing on Oracle Cloud login servers.

Final month, Yale New Haven reported a cybersecurity incident wherein risk actors stole private information of 5.5 million sufferers. The cyberattack prompted IT system disruptions however didn’t have an effect on affected person care.

In 2024, Change Healthcare, a software program and information analytics vendor that gives income cycle administration, medical determination assist and different operations instruments, introduced it took its programs offline on account of a cyberattack.

The corporate, which handles claims for tons of of hundreds of physicians, pharmacies and different suppliers and processes numbering round 15 billion transactions yearly, was struck by BlackCat ransomware, leaving its operations basically debilitated.