Online Tracking Technologies

In a previous “Hospital Websites and Meta Pixel” post, I discussed how the Meta Pixel tracker was found on many hospital websites, including appointment scheduling pages and password-protected patient portals. This could result in Meta (the parent company of Facebook) obtaining protected health information (PHI) which would violate the law, namely the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

A few days ago, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR, a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a press release to warn hospital systems that “the use of online tracking technologies that may be integrated into their websites or mobile apps that may be impermissibly disclosing consumers’ sensitive personal health data to third parties.”

It also links to a joint letter that was sent to approximately 130 hospital systems and telehealth providers whose intent was to emphasize potential risks around the use of online tracking technologies. The letter specifically names Meta/Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics as examples of online trackers that can “gather identifiable information about users as they interact with a website or mobile app, often in ways which are not avoidable by and largely unknown to users.”

Although no enforcement activity was mentioned, it concluded by recommending the following: “To the extent you are using the tracking technologies described in this letter on your website or app, we strongly encourage you to review the laws cited in this letter and take actions to protect the privacy and security of individuals’ health information.”

In December 2022, the OCR had issued guidance for the use of online tracking technologies and specifically mentioned that “Regulated entities are not permitted to use tracking technologies in a manner that would result in impermissible disclosures of PHI to tracking technology vendors or any other violations of the HIPAA Rules.”

It is clear that healthcare provider organizations have been put on notice about patient privacy and security requirements under HIPAA law. It will be interesting to see if there are any officially documented violations that result in enforcement action.

UPS Fail, Amazon Win

I recently purchased an item at Amazon and decided to return it. Like many other times in the past, I simply indicated that I wanted to return the item and then was sent a QR code which I took to a nearby UPS Store, along with the item. I suspected that something was wrong because unlike previous experiences with returns where I received a refund within hours or days, I had received no communication from Amazon after several days. I was able to obtain the UPS tracking number for my return and discovered that the package had not made it to its destination.

About 1.5 weeks after returning the item, I attempted to inquire about the delay through UPS, but after fumbling through its website and automated phone triaging system, I was unable to resolve my issue or find a way to speak to a human. The only remaining potentially viable option at UPS was to file a claim, but I was unable to find any criteria related to whether this was the proper approach for my situation. Also, given that the item needed to be received by the Amazon seller by a particular date to qualify for a return, I did not want to get lost in limbo with a UPS claim if it were to be unresolved by the return deadline.

Therefore, I decided to contact Amazon. Initially I struggled to find a way to speak to a live Amazon customer service agent. Like many other large companies, the Amazon website is designed to attempt to resolve a vast majority of customer inquiries. However, none of the standard automated options met my needs. Unable to find a way to speak to a live Amazon agent, I asked Google and was directed to this link which allows customers to request that a representative call them back:

https://www.amazon.com/go/contact-us/call

Although the website says that it is for Amazon Go, Amazon Go Grocery, and Amazon Fresh, I found that they were able to handle inquiries related to any Amazon business. I spoke to a nice lady who understood my story and tried to refund the money to me, but I was a couple days shy of the 2-week mark after which the agent is authorized to issue a refund. Therefore, she asked me to call back in a couple of days. My phone interaction with Amazon was followed up with an email acknowledging the details of our conversation, and this exceeded my expectations. Additionally, instead of having to request a call from an Amazon representative, I was provided with Amazon’s customer service phone numbers which are staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week:

U.S. and Canada: 1-866-216-1072

International: 1-206-266-2992

I was also provided other options for contacting Amazon customer service:

Call: http://www.amazon.com/clicktocall

Chat: http://www.amazon.com/clicktochat

At the 2-week mark after I dropped off my package with UPS, I confirmed that the package was still in “Delay” status and had not reached its destination. Therefore, I dutifully called Amazon customer service and spoke to an agent. After a couple of brief holds, I was told that I should receive my refund within about 10 minutes, and within a few minutes I received both an email and text message confirming that the refund had been issued.

In summary, the root cause of the issues with the return were related to operations at UPS. Given my inability to resolve the issue through UPS in a timely manner, Amazon rose to the occasion and has kept me happy. This will definitely help Amazon retain me as a loyal customer.

COVID-19 Exposure Notifications Turned Off

Today marks the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. The Department of Health and Human Services provides a fact sheet that describes what will change and what will remain the same. One thing I did not expect was that the California Department of Public Health would turn off exposure notifications.

An announcement on the California Department of Public Health website states, “As of May 11, 2023, the COVID-19 digital exposure notification systems across the U.S. are turned off. These systems were timed to shut down on the same date that the nation's COVID-19 State of Emergency ends.”

Facebook User Privacy Settlement

If you were a Facebook user in the United States between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, inclusive, you may be eligible for a cash payment from a Class Action Settlement. Numerous lawsuits were brought on behalf of Facebook users who allege that Facebook (now Meta Platforms, Inc.) shared or otherwise made accessible to third parties (including but not limited to third-party app developers, “whitelisted” parties, business partners, advertisers, and data brokers) user data and data about users’ friends without permission of the users whose data was shared, and did not sufficiently monitor and enforce third-party access or use of that data.

The Facebook User Privacy Settlement is known as In re: Facebook, Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, Case No. 3:18- md-02843-VC (N.D. Cal.), and Facebook denies that it violated any law but has agreed to the Settlement to avoid the costs and risks associated with continuing this case. The only way to receive a cash payment from this Settlement is by submitting a timely and properly completed Claim Form that obtains approval from the Settlement Administrator. The Claim Form must be submitted no later than August 25, 2023.

If the Settlement is approved by the Court, Meta will establish a Settlement Fund of seven hundred twenty-five million dollars ($725,000,000.00) to pay all valid claims submitted by the Settlement Class Members, as well as notice and administration expenses, any attorneys’ fees and costs, and any Service Awards for the Settlement Class Representatives. Your payment will depend on how many Settlement Class Members submit valid claims and how long you were a user on Facebook during the Class Period.

Download Someone Else’s Google Slides

In the past few years, my child’s school has hosted many meetings during which the presenters use Google Slides as a visual aid. When asked to share the slides, sometimes the presenters paste a Google Slides URL into the chat. Alternatively they may state that they will will post the slides on the school website or distribute the slides using other means—in my experience, the presenters don’t always follow up with their commitments. If you’re like me, when there is dense information on a slide deck, you might prefer to focus on the presentation instead of taking notes or screenshots of the slides. Therefore, having a copy of the slides can be very helpful. Here’s how to take matters into your own hands.

If you are provided with the Google Slides URL and if the owner has not restricted access, you can simply paste the URL into a browser to open the slide deck. From there, click File > Download and then select your desired file format (.pdf, .pptx, etc.) to initiate the download. Note that the slide deck owner may not have restricted editing privileges, but it would be common etiquette to not alter any of the contents.

What if you are not given access to the URL? One sneaky way to obtain a URL is to pay attention to the presenter as they prepare to put their Google Slides into presentation mode. Usually the presenter will begin screen sharing (e.g., via Zoom, Teams, or other conferencing application) before sharing their slides. When the presenter reveals the Google slides in their web browser, take a screenshot while the URL is present. If you have a modern macOS operating system, opening the screenshot in Preview will allow you to simply click the URL within the screenshot, because Preview tries to recognize URLs and make them clickable. Preview might have a hard time distinguishing between a capital “I” and a lowercase “L” so you might need to play around with the URL a little bit, but you should eventually be able to figure out the correct URL. The only downside here is that the presenter may have restricted access to the file, so even if you have the correct URL, you might not be able to open the file.

A second sneaky way to obtain a URL is when the Google Slides presentation is embedded into a web page. From your web browser, you can try to show the page source and skim the HTML for the URL. On Safari, you can also use the Web Inspector for this same purpose. Note that both of these functions in Safari requires that you enable the Developer tab from your Preferences settings.

A third sneaky way to obtain a URL is to visit https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/0/ where recently viewed presentations will be listed. This won’t work for presentations you’ve viewed via screen sharing, but if you’ve clicked on a Google Slides presentation while logged in to your Google account, it may be listed here. If so, you can open the Google Slide presentation and download away.

I’d also like to mention that once you obtain the URL of a Google Slides document, you can also construct a URL to directly download the file. The URL syntax of a Google Slides presentation is as follows:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/PRESENTATION_ID/edit

Once you have the PRESENTATION_ID, simply plug it into one of the following URLs to download the slides in .pdf or .pptx format:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/PRESENTATION_ID/export/pdf

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/PRESENTATION_ID/export/pptx

Visit this blog for more Google Drive URL tricks that pertain to not only Google Slides but also Google Docs and Google Sheets. 

Caption Your Phone Calls with Olelo

If you have a family member or friend who is experiencing hearing loss, and that person is finding it difficult to carry on a phone conversation, then consider trying a phone captioning app called Olelo. Olelo helps people with hearing loss by captioning in real time every word as it’s spoken during a phone conversation.

The app is available for iOS and Android users, and it is free to use for qualified users with hearing loss. Olelo uses Internet Protocol Captioned Telephone Service (IP CTS) which is a form of telecommunications relay service (TRS) that permits an individual who can speak, but who has difficulty hearing, to use a phone to simultaneously listen to the other party and read captions of what the other party is saying. Unlike some services that use live transcriptionists, Olelo uses voice recognition technology to automatically transcribe spoken words into text. An IP CTS Consumer Guide describes the technology in more detail.

The FCC IP CTS program has a mandate to ensure functionally-equivalent phone service for the deaf and hard-of-hearing and compensates Olelo for the services they offer, thereby allowing Olelo to be used for free. Olelo provides answers to frequently asked questions, so check it out if you think it could help someone with hearing loss.

Revert to Previous Version of ETT

Eleven Table Tennis (ETT) is an amazing virtual reality table tennis game for Meta Quest. It features very realistic physics and modes where you can play against the computer or other humans in real time (or near real time as I describe here).

In December 2022, the ETT developers introduced avatars to the game, and the new release was accompanied by so many issues that negatively impacted gameplay that they issued an emergency roll back to the prior version.

Several days ago, the ETT developers issued another update, again with avatars, with many of the gameplay issues remedied. However, I did not like the update because the screen would glitch frequently during a match, and my avatar’s arms would sometimes appear on the screen despite me toggling the setting to display the avatar only to my opponents. I understand why the developers want to introduce avatars, but I still consider this newest release to be a downgrade. Many players on the Eleven Table Tennis Facebook Group have expressed similar complaints. In that forum, I learned how to revert the app to a previous version. Here’s how:

1. Launch the Quest app on your smartphone

2. Launch the Store

3. Navigate to the app (in this case, Eleven Table Tennis)

4. Scroll down to the Version and tap on it

 

5. Tap “Channel”

6. Select the version you want to revert to

  

Next time you use your Quest headset, you should be notified that there is an update to the app. Install the update. This should install the version that you selected.

Hope this helps!