[JohnFen]

The title is totally misleading. It very much implies that hospitals are giving data about visitors to the hospital, which would be incredibly egregious.

Tracking website visitors is bad, but is something I 100% expect. If others aren't expecting this, that's a serious problem. People should absolutely be warned when it happens (or, better, laws should exist to prevent it from happening).

But web visitor tracking is not nearly as sensitive as tracking visitors to the hospitals (or any other health care provider premises) themselves.

I avoid the data leakage for sensitive things like health care by never using websites related to those things. I know that people often forget this, but at least in the US, using a website to interact with health care providers is not actually mandatory.

[WaitWaitWha]

> I avoid the data leakage for sensitive things like health care by never using websites related to those things. I know that people often forget this, but at least in the US, using a website to interact with health care providers is not actually mandatory.

It is not mandatory but is made extremely onerous. I can get on the web site, authenticate while tracked, enter my request, or I can call an automated maze, get repeatedly dropped, talked to a ChatGPT knock-off, get dropped again, and maybe I get a human to answer my request. Then, I get an email asking if I am satisified with the service.

[JohnFen]

Interesting. I have to admit, I've never had a problem talking to doctor's offices or the hospitals in my area by phone. No onerous phone trees (just a simple initial menu), no voice robots, and usually only a short wait to talk to a human.

I need to stop complaining about my hospital. Apparently, this is one area where they're above the grade. But even if my phone experience was like yours, I'd still use the phone instead of the web site due to privacy concerns.

In the end, as with all privacy/security issues, there's an inherent tradeoff between convenience and security. Everyone has a different place on that spectrum where they're most comfortable. But at least we can choose how much of a tradeoff we're willing to engage in.