Meta was sued for allegedly violating users’ privacy rights by collecting data from users of popular third-party tax software.
The referral relates to recent allegations that online tax software tools such as H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer used the company’s “Meta Pixel”, a piece of javascript code, to send information such as names, email addresses, income information, student loans, and the repayment amounts go back to Meta.
This would then be used by the tech giant to create custom, targeted ads based on data from platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
The lawsuit, which was filed on December 1, targets users using H&R Block.
The sawing (opens in a new tab) claims that while users “explicitly declined” to share their Meta data, the company collected it anyway.
While the plaintiff’s lawsuit acknowledged that Meta required companies to have a “lawful right to collect, use and share” user data, it went on to claim that it did not honor this, instead relying on a “broken honor system that led to repeated, documented violations of Meta’s own contractual promises and state and federal laws.”
Despite the alleged misconduct on the part of the tech giant, current users of these tax schemes should have no reason to worry.
According markers (opens in a new tab), all of the aforementioned tax platforms have either removed Pixel completely or changed its settings to not collect any additional financial information from users.
It should be noted that the tax services themselves were not named as defendants in the filing, listing all alleged misconduct on Meta’s part.
Meta is certainly no stranger to legal disputes.
The company has been hit with a fine of €265 million for data protection from the Irish Data Protection Commission over allegations that the company failed to protect the personal data of half a billion users, bringing its total EU fines to well over €1 billion.
- Do you want to be sure that your data will not fall into the wrong hands? Check out our guide to the best privacy tools.