Facebook Users Sue Meta for Skirting Apple's Privacy Rules

Two Facebook users sued Meta for allegedly building a secret work-around to safeguards that Apple launched last year to protect iPhone users from having their internet activity tracked.

A proposed class-action complaint filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court accuses Meta of skirting Apple’s 2021 privacy rules and violating state and federal laws limiting the unauthorized collection of personal data. A similar complaint was filed in the same court last week.

Meta’s collection of user data from the Facebook app helps it to circumvent rules instituted by Apple in 2021. These require all third-party apps to obtain consent from users before tracking their activities, online or off. This dealt a huge blow to Facebook's ads income as we reported previously.

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Last year Apple rolled out iOS 14.5, which allowed iPhone and iPad users to opt out of letting apps like Facebook track their activity on their devices.

Durov's CodeArtem Andryanov

According to data privacy researcher Felix Krause, on which the suits are based, Facebook and Instagram apps for Apple’s iOS inject JavaScript code onto websites visited by users. Krause said the code allowed the apps to track “anything you do on any website,” including typing passwords.

In response, Meta acknowledged that the Facebook app monitors browser activity, but denied it was illegally collecting user data.