Blue Shield class action overview:
- Who: Plaintiff Andrew Brown filed a class action lawsuit against Blue Shield of California.
- Why: Brown claims Blue Shield shared the personal information of its patients with Google Analytics.
- Where: The class action lawsuit was filed in California state court.
A new Blue Shield class action lawsuit claims Blue Shield of California shared the personal information of some of its patients due to its use of Google Analytics on its websites.
Plaintiff Andrew Brown filed the class action complaint against Blue Shield in California state court on April 14, days after the health insurer announced the alleged data sharing.
Brown claims Blue Shield violated California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act by allegedly sharing the personal data of some of its patients with Google Analytics.
“This class action seeks to redress Blue Shield’s negligent maintenance and disclosure of its insureds’ confidential protected medical information,” the Blue Shield class action lawsuit says.
Blue Shield allegedly used Google Analytics to track the website usage of members who entered certain Blue Shield sites in an effort to improve the services it provides to its members, the Blue Shield class action lawsuit says.
Blue Shield knew of data breach in January 2024, class action alleges
Blue Shield announced April 9 that the personal information of some of its patients was shared with Google Ads between April 2021 and January 2024, the class action alleges.
Brown claims Blue Shield knew of the data breach in January 2024 or before, but waited more than a year to notify its insureds.
“Blue Shield owed a duty to plaintiff and class members to maintain reasonable and adequate security measures to secure, protect, and safeguard the information it collected and stored,” the Blue Shield class action lawsuit says.
The lawsuit further claims that “Blue Shield breached that duty by, among other things, failing to implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices to protect the PHI from unauthorized access.”
The Blue Shield class action lawsuit alleges that the data breach would not have happened if Blue Shield had not given Google access to obtain and use the data.
Brown wants to represent a class of California residents whose PHI was subjected to the Google-related data breach.
In November 2023, a class action against health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield Association alleged the company disclosed federal employees’ medical information to third parties, including TikTok, without consent.
What do you think of the claims made in the Blue Shield class action lawsuit? Let us know in the comments.
The Blue Shield class action lawsuit is Andrew Brown, et al. v. California Physicians’ Service d/b/a Blue Shield of California, Case No. 37-2025-00017468-CU-NP-CTL, in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego.
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