In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and amid increasing public wariness about Facebook and other data companies’ ability to safeguard consumer privacy, CNBC’s Christina Farr reported that Facebook secretly approached top US hospitals and healthcare systems and asked them to share anonymized patient data, which it hoped to then match up to health data it had already collected about its users.

According to Farr, Facebook wanted to test its ability to match ID-obscured patient data to its user data, via a process called “hashing.” It pitched the project as a means to allow health systems to increase patient engagement and improve outcomes.

Although Facebook now says that the project is on hiatus, patient privacy and consumer advocates are nonetheless sounding alarms, noting that such a capability could potentially violate HIPAA, increase patients’ vulnerability to identity theft and lead to negative professional consequences.

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