It's Friday, April six. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. Retail pharmacies are a huge part of the administration's plan to get the country vaccinated, but privacy watchdogs are raising red flags and want oversight and how these pharmacies might be using personal information to boost profits. In many cases, to sign up for your vaccine, you may need to hand over phone numbers, emails, and even more personal data.
Mohanna Reventer nath e health reporter at Politico, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Mohanna, thanks for having me. The Biden administration has been really big on retail pharmacies and this whole rollout of the vaccines. You know, we're sending millions of doses to CVS, Walgreens, Ride Aids, Walmart's, even all obviously in the effort to get as many
people vaccinated as possible. But what also is happening right now is there's a lot of privacy watchdogs that are sounding alarms on you know, the infra nation that you have to hand over when you're trying to book your appointment, whether it be phone number, email, both. In some cases, some of these places make you sign up for like an online portal and you have to give some personal
information there. They say they're using it to track people and give them reminders when it's their vaccine time and schedule appointments are up, but you know they could also be using it for some other things. So you know that's what the concern is. So Mohana tell us a
little bit more about this place. So we know that national retail pharmacy chains are a big part of the federal vaccine rollout, and what we're finding is that to be able to get these spots, people often have to make an account or they have to share some information with like a CBS or write aid or a Walmart to be able in some cases to even find out if they're eligible or to find out if there's a slot available. So the question now becomes what can pharmacies
do with that data? And you know, we know that retail pharmacies have for a long time had huge amounts of data on people that are going into flu shots or refilling their prescriptions and things like this. They also have marketing, They have information on people buying habits based on what they buy sort of at the front of
the store. But the question arises now when they were part of you know, the public health Emergency response and they're you know, collectively offering millions of doses of the life saving vaccine UM. What does that mean for people that potentially don't have a choice but to make an account with a Walmart or Sam's Clouds or something like that in exchange for the vaccine. So one of the things we're looking at is, you know, are they able to use that information from marketing or are they able
to sign you up for a loyalty program? And based on our review of these sites, often these companies don't make clear how they're using that data. And we have companies like CBS who have been very upfront about their plans to in the future use this information for turning these newcomers into repeat customers. Yeah, that was very interesting, you know. And so these pharmacies have a lot of
room to collect these user customer data and everything. They can't use a lot of your health information sensitive health information, and so there's a distinction there. But that number and that email, as you mentioned, they can use it for a couple of other things there. But tell me about
a little bit more about that. There was like some memos or something going around talking about how because you're supposed to wait about fifteen minutes after you get your vaccine to make sure you don't get any reactions, and this was a key moment where they can help turn these people getting their vaccines into longer term customers. How
how did that work out? So it's interesting as I talked to these companies, and you know, the participants in this retail rollout are not just huge national pharmacy chains like a CBS, but also networks of independent pharmacies. And I think what they're doing right now is they're trying to figure out how do we make this into sort of a business opportunity somewhere down the line. Of course they will all tell us and you know, no reason not to believe that this is you know, it's it's
a crucial part of public health response. Of course that is their main priority. But then we also know that it's not really a money maker for them, and so I think they're realizing that they do have access to huge amounts of data as part of the Testy rollout, so they're thinking about how they can sort of you know, increased brand awareness. You know, some of the independent, the smaller independent pharmacies are thinking, you know, how can we let people in the community know who we are people
who have never come to us? And in the case of CVS, it's like, how do we tell people that have never come to CVS before who we are and what we do. So I see a lot of these pharmacies thinking about how this really cumbersome rollout process can be valuable somewhere down the line in terms of marketing or building their healthcare response. And some of the criticism for some of these privacy watchdogs is that when people go in their flu shots, this isn't really done that way.
They're not really collecting that type of information, So why would it be happening with this And I get it, you have to make your appointment. The resources are low right now with the vaccines, but you know, they're making those comparisons to flu shots where they don't really collect a lot of that information. If you're gonna go, it's free and it's it's quick. I think there are a couple of things that make this different from flu shot rollout.
I think the volume, the number of people that are being asked and expected to get the vaccine is probably greater than the number that generally get their flu shots. So I think that there is a difference on the amount of data that they're getting from a larger number of people than they normally would. But there's also this question of you know, do people always have to create accounts?
I think people are often able to drop in for their flu shots, and a lot of these pharmacies are not allowing you to just drop in for your COVID shots. You do have to make an account. In some cases that account is kept separate from their marketing databases. But at least these companies are telling me that in some cases they are keeping the COVID nineteen vaccine sign up separate from marketing databases. But some companies have not been as explicit, and so what has the reaction been to this,
at least from the retail pharmacies. So, you know, retail pharmacies often will tell us we collect the amount of information that is necessary to track second doses or to administer the doses. But also what I'm finding is that there's a wide variation and what retail pharmacies collect at the point of sign up. Right, so in our review.
My colleague and I when we were looking through all these portals, we're finding that places like Walmart and Sam Clubs require you to make an account first before you even look at eligibility, before you can see scheduling. Other places will let you look at scheduling and eligibility before you make an account, but you do have to make an account to sign up. And so it's really interesting to see the wide variation and what people have to share.
Um places like Right Aid, for instance, will ask for your Social Security number. Not everybody does that, and so what the amounts of data that a person has to share. And I think how it's used will vary depending on the pharmacy, and I think that's where privacy watchdogs are also raising the alarm. Mohanna Revenge your neath e health reporter at Politico, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks so much. I'm alst Ramirez and this has been
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