Doctoralia Sent Appointment Data to Big Tech

When patients in Brazil, Colombia, or Mexico open Doctoralia to find a gynecologist, dermatologist, or psychologist, they are often doing so at a moment of real vulnerability. According to a joint investigation by The Markup and Agência Pública, the booking platform has been quietly passing details of those searches and appointments to some of the world's largest advertising platforms.

The review covered multiple Doctoralia domains and found trackers embedded in the site that followed visitors from nearly the moment they began searching for care, then relayed that information to TikTok, Google, and LinkedIn. Doctoralia said it would conduct a detailed review of its online practices, but maintained that it does not monetize patient data.

What the traffic logs revealed

The investigation, conducted as part of a broader series on web tracking, examined network traffic between Doctoralia domains in several countries and popular social media sites. The logs showed that embedded online trackers fired early in a user's session — before any email address or name was entered — and often tied visitors to unique identifiers that social platforms can use to connect browsing behavior with existing profiles.

In one documented case, a visitor in São Paulo searched for a gynecologist. The site sent that search, including the provider specialty, to Google through its marketing platform. If the visitor proceeded to book an appointment, the doctor's name and other information, along with the date and time of the appointment, were also sent to the company.

Similar patterns appeared elsewhere. Searches for specialists in Colombia were sent to social media companies. When a user in Cartagena booked an appointment with a dermatologist, the provider's name and the appointment date and time went to LinkedIn. In Bogotá, bookings with psychologists, dermatologists, and other care providers were shared with TikTok — a pattern that also appeared for users in Mexico.

Why medical search paths matter

Privacy advocates argue that the path a person takes when seeking medical care can itself expose sensitive health information, even without an explicit diagnosis. The sequence of searches, the specialty chosen, and the timing of an appointment can all reveal clues about a person's health status.

A Brazilian gynecologist who uses Doctoralia and spoke to Pública and The Markup on condition of anonymity explained how much can be inferred. A search for gynecology, obstetrics, or reproductive care, the doctor said, may be related to trying to conceive, a possible pregnancy, infertility, choosing a contraceptive method, or concern after a risky sexual encounter.

"When someone looks for a doctor, a test or a clinic, they are looking for care, guidance, help," he said. "So there is a legitimate expectation of privacy."

— A Brazilian gynecologist who uses Doctoralia, who spoke on condition of anonymity

In the doctor's view, even though inference is not the same as diagnosis, the expectation of confidentiality in the relationship between patient and professional should also apply in the digital environment.

Legal questions in Brazil

The investigation raised questions about whether the data sharing runs afoul of privacy law, particularly in Brazil, which has a comprehensive national privacy framework, the General Data Protection Law.

Experts told The Markup and Pública that the tracking could attract scrutiny from government agencies. Rafael Zanatta, co-director of Data Privacy Brazil, an advocacy organization, said the use of unique IDs to build profiles was concerning.

"Obviously there is a risk here of permanent tracking based on unique IDs and building profiles that people are not aware of," said Rafael Zanatta, co-director of Data Privacy Brazil. "There could be a massive violation of those fundamental rights."

Chiara de Teffé, a professor of digital law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said Brazilian law does not limit protection to diagnoses and medical records. "Behavioral information may receive enhanced protection when, because of its context and the way it is processed, it reveals or allows inferences about aspects of someone's health," she said.

But not all Brazilian authorities agreed on the sensitivity of the data. The country's Federal Council of Medicine, which regulates and licenses medical professionals, told Pública and The Markup that "booking an appointment does not involve medical confidentiality" and that "there is no sensitive data of any kind when a patient seeks a specialist." The National Supplementary Health Agency, which regulates private insurance, took a different view, saying "the medical specialty sought and other appointment-booking information may reveal aspects of a person's health."

Doctoralia's response and review

Arsenia Nikolaeva, a spokesperson for Doctoralia parent company Docplanner, said in a statement that the trackers were used to monitor the company's own social media campaigns. She said Doctoralia "does not use these tools to sell personal data or to operate a commercial data product" and that the company is not paid by social media companies for data.

The company said it would review its practices. "We take the questions raised very seriously and are conducting a detailed technical and legal review of the matters described, including the relevant technical configurations," Nikolaeva said in an email. "We remain committed to protecting personal data across all the markets in which we operate, and to acting appropriately based on the outcome of that review."

Platform policies and their limits

The social media companies involved say they have rules against receiving sensitive information, including health data, through their tracking tools. Google spokesperson Sofie Diskin said the company has "strict, long-standing policies against collecting private health information or advertising based on sensitive information" and provides customers with tools to help them avoid collecting health data.

LinkedIn spokesperson Brionna Ruff said the company's policies "prohibit installation" of its Insight Tag on pages that collect sensitive data, and that the company does not want such data. TikTok did not respond to a request for comment.

In practice, however, healthcare businesses have repeatedly been found transmitting sensitive data, leading to regulatory scrutiny and a wave of lawsuits in the United States. The Markup has reported on pixel tracking since 2022, documenting its use across education, finance, and healthcare — including tax filing companies, the Department of Education's financial aid service, and major hospital websites.

The scale of Docplanner's platform

Doctoralia's parent, Docplanner Group, was founded in Poland in 2012 and says it operates a platform across 13 countries, from Turkey to Chile. It reports that 100 million people book 25 million appointments per month through its services, which function similarly to ZocDoc in the United States.

The investigation found that not all Doctoralia domains behaved the same way. In Spain, where Doctoralia is based and where the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation applies, a search for an appointment was not sent to outside companies in testing. In Germany, a pop-up allows visitors to turn off tracking cookies. In the Latin American countries tested, a pop-up informs readers of cookies but does not immediately offer them a way to turn them off.

The countries where Doctoralia operates have a patchwork of laws providing varying protections. Unlike the unified EU framework, the most stringent privacy protections in Latin America come from Brazil's General Data Protection Law, which requires companies to process data with full transparency about how it will be used.

What the numbers show

• Docplanner says it operates across 13 countries
• 100 million people use the platform
• 25 million appointments are booked per month
• The Markup has been reporting on pixel tracking since 2022
• Facebook was found receiving sensitive medical information from hospital websites in 2022

Why this matters beyond Latin America

The findings add to a growing body of evidence that health-related data can leak through advertising infrastructure even when the companies involved say they do not want it. For patients, the practical consequence is that a search for care — a query that feels private — may be logged and used to build advertising profiles. For businesses operating in the health space, the investigation suggests that standard marketing tools can create legal exposure in jurisdictions with strong privacy laws, and that cookie banners offering no way to opt out may not be enough.

Because the story is currently reported by one collaboration between The Markup and Agência Pública, independent corroboration of the full scope of the tracking is not yet available. Still, the pattern echoes earlier U.S. cases in which hospital websites sent appointment information to Meta, prompting lawsuits and changes in practice. This latest review suggests the same architecture is at work in Latin America, where regulators may now face pressure to examine how health data moves through ad tech systems. Whether the review Doctoralia has promised leads to changes in its tracking setup will determine whether the practice continues or is curtailed.