Northwell Health, one of New York’s largest health systems, faced a proposed class action over the use of “pixel” tracking tools—snippets of code commonly used on websites to measure traffic and ad performance—that plaintiffs say transmitted patient-related browsing and portal activity to third parties like Google and Facebook. The settlement covers two groups: people who logged into the FollowMyHealth portal or booked appointments on Northwell’s website from Jan. 1, 2020, to Dec. 31, 2023 (Subclass 1), and patients more broadly from Jan. 1, 2020, to July 25, 2024 (Subclass 2). While Northwell denies wrongdoing, it agreed to an undisclosed payment to resolve the claims, with Subclass 1 eligible for $15 plus 12 months of privacy monitoring and Subclass 2 eligible for 12 months of privacy monitoring, subject to a timely claim. The lawsuit (Kaplan v. Northwell Health Inc.) was filed because plaintiffs allege the tracking pixels effectively shared sensitive health-related information without consent, violating federal and state privacy protections and exposing patients to potential profiling or targeted advertising based on medical interactions. Its significance lies in how it tests the boundary between routine digital analytics and protected health information—especially when a hospital’s website or patient portal reveals appointment intent, provider pages viewed, or portal logins that could be tied back to an individual. Like many privacy class actions, the settlement provides relatively modest individual payments but underscores the growing expectation that healthcare entities treat marketing and analytics tech as a high-risk channel for data leakage. Broader implications extend across hospitals, telehealth providers, and digital health companies that rely on third-party tracking for outreach and conversion metrics: these cases push organizations to audit trackers, restrict what data flows to vendors, and adopt privacy-by-design configurations. The dispute also sits within a tightening regulatory environment, including HIPAA’s limits on using or disclosing protected health information without authorization, state medical privacy and consumer protection laws, and heightened scrutiny from regulators around online tracking in healthcare contexts—an area that has spurred similar pixel-related litigation nationwide and prompted many providers to remove or reconfigure tracking tools to avoid inadvertent disclosure of patient data.