A group of anonymous plaintiffs has filed a class action lawsuit against Meta for violating user trust and expectation of privacy, as well as breaking some state and federal laws.
The suit follows an investigation by The Markup revealing that tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook.
What the investigation found
The Markup found that major US tax filing services that millions of Americans use to file their taxes online, including H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer, were secretly sent through a code called Meta Pixel. Many popular online tax filing sites use this code. The information sent includes names, email addresses, user income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship information.
Facebook could use this data to power its advertising algorithm, even if the user in question didn’t have an account with the social media platform owned by Meta. Information about specific users was often obfuscated; however, it is sometimes possible to link users to their Facebook profiles.
The Markup reached out to several of the accused tax filing services, many of which claimed not to know the extent of the information shared with Facebook. A spokesperson for a service called Ramsey Solutions told The Markup that they used the “Meta Pixel to deliver a more personalized customer experience” but had no idea it was helping collect sensitive tax information. They said they immediately deactivated the pixel upon hearing the news. Other companies have also deactivated or changed the pixel settings upon hearing the news.
How the Meta Pixel works
The Meta Pixel code is free for anyone to use on their site or online service and is beneficial to both companies and Facebook. When a user visits a website using the Meta Pixel, the code will save their browsing history and then share it with Facebook so that the company can provide ads on Facebook targeting those who have already browsed their products. At the same time, Facebook benefits as it can use the information to provide more user insights and train its algorithms.
Although Meta’s Help Center states that it prohibits sending users’ sensitive financial data, The Markup found that this was not the case in practice.
Awarding damages
The lawsuit, which is based heavily on The Markup’s reporting, is seeking damages for Facebook users who filed their taxes on sites that used the Meta Pixel. They are not targeting the tax filing companies in the suit.
This isn’t the only litigation Meta is facing over the use of its Meta Pixel. A previous report from The Markup earlier this year found that the Meta Pixel has gathered sensitive health information about users on hospital websites. Meta has faced at least five proposed class-action lawsuits since this report was published.
Staying secure online
If you’re concerned about your own sensitive data being leaked in such a way, there are some steps you can take to prevent it.
- Use an anti-tracking extension like AdBlock Plus and DuckDuckGo (Unfortunately, companies can sometimes circumvent this software.)
- Prevent businesses from sharing your information about your interactions with them by disabling future off-page Facebook activity.
- Stop Meta from tracking your location by turning off location services.
- Delete your Meta accounts. This is the only way to ensure your online activities aren’t tracked.
If you’re a website owner who wants to do their due diligence by protecting your users from being tracked when they use your site, you can either remove the Meta pixel from your site or disable it. And of course make sure you always have an up-to-date SSL certificate installed on your site so that users have a fully encrypted experience.
Cora is a digital copywriter for SSLs.com. Having eight years of experience in online content creation, she is a versatile writer with an interest in a wide variety of topics, ranging from technology to marketing.