Facebook sued in the UK: see why!

a Facebooka social network affiliated with the Meta Group, is being sued by a human rights activist Humans in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The activist claims that the social network ignores her right to object to the collection of her personal data. To understand more about it, see here the grounds for action against the company.

Read more: Data analysis: How Facebook collects data to create metrics and statistics

Data collection

Gathering data from social networks such as Facebook causes the network to generate revenue by building user profiles and matching advertisers who target certain ads to people based on their past interests.

However, there is a usage policy on the social network itself where permission is requested or not to collect data for Facebook. But the issue being analyzed is that even after this permission is denied, the company collects and sells this data to advertisers on the platform.

What is Tanya O’Carroll claiming?

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, O’Carroll said: “This issue is really about us all being able to connect with social media on our own terms and without having to accept that we have to go through a process of surveillance profiling. From very invasive tracking just to be able to access to social media.”

O’Carroll, along with Foxglove, a legal campaign group in the UK, allege that Facebook has breached Article 21 of the UK’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which gives people the right to protest the processing of your personal data for marketing purposes.

If successful, the activist says, it could set precedents for millions of Facebook users to file lawsuits against the company. O’Carrol has filed a complaint with the Supreme Court and is awaiting Meta to acknowledge the claim.

target response

The response of a company spokesperson was that the company understands the importance of user privacy. This is why the tools were created on the platform to perform privacy checks and ad preferences. Giving more clarity on how the collection of this data works by the social network, and the ability to have more control over the type of ads that may appear.