Akron Children’s Hospital reaches settlement in data privacy class action over Meta Pixel use

Akron Children’s Hospital has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the healthcare provider of improperly sharing patient and visitor data with third parties through its use of website tracking tools.

The lawsuit, Doe v. Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron, was filed in January 2024 in the Court of Common Pleas of Summit County, Ohio. Plaintiff John Doe, acting on behalf of himself, his three minor children, and other individuals, alleged that the hospital’s use of Meta Pixel and similar analytics tools caused personally identifiable information to be disclosed to Facebook, Google, and other companies without user consent.

The complaint included claims of invasion of privacy, negligence, breach of confidence, unjust enrichment, and unlawful interception of electronic communications. Akron Children’s denied all allegations of wrongdoing but entered settlement negotiations after mediation efforts stalled. Following months of talks, both sides reached an agreement that has now received preliminary approval from Judge Alison McCarty.

Under the settlement, the hospital will provide 313,700 class members with a one-time cash payment of $19 and two years of credit monitoring and identity theft protection. The services include dark web monitoring, lost wallet assistance, identity theft restoration, advisory support, and a $1 million insurance policy.

Akron Children’s will also cover attorneys’ fees, administrative costs, and service awards for named plaintiffs. In addition, the hospital has agreed to injunctive relief requiring the removal of tracking pixels from its public-facing website and prohibiting their use on its patient portal or online forms. The hospital may still use pixels essential to website functionality and may engage HIPAA-compliant vendors for analytics under a business associate agreement.