A Bloomberg investigation revealed that nearly all of the 20 state-run health insurance exchange websites embedded ad trackers that shared sensitive personal information including citizenship, race, sex, and ZIP codes with tech companies like Meta, TikTok, Google, Snap, and LinkedIn. States including Washington, Virginia, New York, New Mexico, Maryland, and Rhode Island transmitted user data through these trackers, which were intended to improve marketing targeting on social platforms. Virginia and several other states removed the trackers only after Bloomberg contacted them for comment, with officials claiming they did not fully understand what data was being transmitted. The data sharing occurred despite tech companies' terms of service prohibiting such sensitive information, and in the absence of comprehensive federal privacy law, leaving responsibility unclear between state governments and platforms.
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