Doctor check-in software harvests your health data

I'm a private healthcare advocate (I live in Canada where it's not supposed to exist and our government healthcare is not very good).

That said, this is a downside of under-regulated private healthcare, or at least an argument for government intervention. (Note that public healthcare systems like canada could still use this immoral software.) I can imagine some horrible race to the bottom where ad-supported healthcare (accompanied by intrusive personal data harvesting) is the norm. That's basically how every other business works, it's no surprise you'd find it in healthcare. Personally I think there should be rules that straight up prohibit it, no opt-in or anything else. Just like insurance companies tracking information so they can charge people more and deny more claims, it's a net loss to society, and if government has any role, it should be to protect against this.

Should we add something to the Hippocratic oath about this? Doctors should act in their patient's best interest, not set a minefield of privacy invasions and upselling to them. They should not allow 3rd parties to sleaze their way between them and their patients to subvert the relationship for profit.

A lot of Doctor offices pushed this Phreesia check in crap during the height of the pandemic, it seemed to me that it was being sold as a "safer" way to check in to see instead of pen and clipboard.

It should be unlawful for any company to use any customer’s data for any purpose other than what is reasonably expected based on their product marketing.