Walmart says it’s using customer data to see if people who fill Wegovy or Ozempic prescriptions are buying less food, raising privacy questions.
Last week, Walmart made headlines with a claim that new weight loss drugs might be making people buy less food. Walmart US CEO John Furner told Bloomberg that people taking Wegovy, Ozempic, and similar drugs showed a “slight change” in their purchasing habits: “just less units, slightly less calories.” How does Walmart know this? Because, Bloomberg indicates, it can compare people’s prescription history against their food shopping patterns.
But per Bloomberg, Walmart promises its data is anonymized, or stripped of identifying details that could be tied back to specific patients. Unfortunately, the idea that huge, complex datasets can be meaningfully “anonymous” is largely a polite fiction. “Even anonymized prescription details can reveal a lot about individuals,” says Sklar. “Details like medication, dosage, timing, prescriber, pharmacy, etc. can be very unique to an individual, which makes it easier to re-identify someone.
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