Meta has agreed for the primary time to cease utilizing the private knowledge of a particular particular person for focused promoting, as a part of a negotiated settlement with human rights campaigner Tanya O’Carroll.
Launched in November 2022, O’Carroll’s lawsuit alleged the know-how conglomerate was ignoring her authorized proper to object to the processing and continued use of her private knowledge for focused promoting on its Fb service.
Within the wake of the settlement – which was agreed simply days earlier than the declare was resulting from be heard within the British Excessive Courtroom – Meta should now stop its monitoring and profiling of O’Carroll for the needs of serving microtargeted adverts.
This marks the primary time an individual within the UK has secured an settlement with the social media firm over the fitting to decide out of its surveillance-based promoting – doubtlessly setting a precedent that enables tens of millions of UK customers to confidently train their similar proper to object.
“This settlement represents not only a victory for me, however for everybody who values their basic proper to privateness,” mentioned O’Carroll. “None of us signed as much as be trapped into a long time of surveillance promoting, held hostage by the specter of shedding the power to attach with our family members on-line.”
O’Carroll created her Fb account round 20 years in the past, however after discovering out she was pregnant in 2017, she started to note the “unnerving” focused promoting on Fb. Earlier than telling her household and pals the information, O’Carroll was already being bombarded with adverts about infants, being pregnant and motherhood.
Having labored in tech coverage and human rights as a former director of Amnesty Tech and Individuals vs Large Tech, O’Carroll was conscious that people have the fitting to object to surveillance-based promoting like that utilized by Meta.
Basic Knowledge Safety Regulation
O’Carroll particularly argued that Meta breached Article 21 of the UK Basic Knowledge Safety Regulation (GDPR), which provides people an unqualified proper to object to the processing of their knowledge for direct advertising.
Whereas Meta denied that its personalised promoting constituted direct promoting, the Info Commissioner’s Workplace (ICO) intervened within the litigation in help of O’Carroll’s case, stating that on-line focused promoting must be thought of direct advertising.
In a press release on the case, an ICO spokesperson mentioned: “Organisations should respect individuals’s decisions about how their knowledge is used. This implies giving customers a transparent strategy to decide out of their knowledge getting used on this approach. If individuals consider that an organisation just isn’t complying with their request to cease processing their knowledge, they will file a grievance to us. We’ll proceed to have interaction with Meta on this problem.”
Alexander Lawrence-Archer – one of many solicitors within the authorized workforce at AWO who represented O’Carroll – mentioned: “While the authorized points within the case weren’t adjudicated by the court docket because of the last-minute settlement, the ICO made a uncommon intervention. The ICO has publicised the thrust of that intervention, which is per what Tanya argued within the case: that the GDPR proper to object applies to Meta’s processing for concentrating on commercials to its customers.”
Whereas the settlement means the court docket has not made a proper choice on the matter, O’Carroll and AWO consider the scenario might set a precedent for future authorized instances towards surveillance promoting on-line, and push a possible change in firm coverage within the UK.
Talking with Pc Weekly, AWO added: “The ICO even went additional, indicating that if different individuals have been to make use of the fitting, the regulator would again them up. So, while the case didn’t go to court docket, the regulator’s intervention met Tanya’s second goal: individuals ought to now really feel assured that they can also use the fitting to object within the GDPR to get extra management over their knowledge.”
Human rights and privateness on-line linked
The case additionally demonstrates that human rights and privateness on-line are basically linked.
“We should always not must commerce away our privateness to entry important on-line providers,” mentioned Jim Killock, government director of Open Rights Group. “The true resolution is to interrupt down the monopoly of walled gardens.”
In partnership with authorized specialists at AWO, the Good Regulation Mission has created a device to ship automated requests to Meta’s knowledge safety officer, which individuals can use to demand it stops utilizing their private knowledge for focused promoting.
O’Carroll believes her victory might result in better accountability from Large Tech and assist win again our proper to digital privateness: “When one firm controls how we join, talk and get our information, we’re left with no actual alternative. Meta acts like a public sq. however manages to dodge public accountability. It’s time for a fairer web – the place privateness is a proper, not a worth we’re pressured to pay.”
Meta mentioned that regardless of the settlement, it nonetheless “basically” disagreed with O’Carroll’s claims, arguing that “no enterprise may be mandated to provide away its providers totally free”.
A spokesperson added: “Fb and Instagram value a big amount of cash to construct and keep, and these providers are free for British shoppers due to personalised promoting.
“Our providers help British jobs and financial development by connecting companies with the individuals almost definitely to purchase their merchandise, whereas enabling common entry to on-line providers no matter earnings,” they mentioned. “We’ll proceed to defend its worth whereas upholding consumer alternative and privateness.”
Following an analogous 2023 ruling within the European Courtroom of Justice, Meta started providing a “pay or consent” subscription service mannequin within the European Union, the place customers pays month-to-month so they don’t obtain adverts on the platform.
The Meta spokesperson mentioned the corporate was “exploring the choice” of providing an analogous service to UK customers and would “share additional data in the end”.
The settlement additionally comes amid elevated scrutiny of Meta’s surveillance-based enterprise mannequin.
In March 2025, a memoir printed by former Fb government Sarah Wynn-Williams – titled Carless individuals – alleged that Meta allowed advertisers to focus on weak individuals primarily based on them feeling “nugatory”, “anxious” or “insecure”.
Nevertheless, the corporate has denied the declare, saying it has by no means provided instruments to focus on individuals primarily based on their emotional state.
