Meta has offered to ask users in Europe for permission to show them targeted ads when they use Facebook and Instagram to resolve a long-running legal battle.
Users could soon be shown an updated consent policy that will seek users’ consent prior to collecting data for personalised advertising purposes, such as data on what types of videos or posts they like and share, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and Reuters.
The UK’s privacy regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), said on Wednesday it is paying close attention to the conflict between Meta and EU regulators.
In January, Meta was fined €390m (£335m) by the European Union‘s main privacy watchdog, Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, for the way in which it collects user data for targeted ads and ordered to change its processes to be in line with EU rules.
Following more meetings with Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, Meta decided to make this proposal and put out a blog post detailing its plans. Curiously however, this blog post was taken offline less than 24 hours later.
“Today, we are announcing our intention to change the legal basis that we use to process certain data for behavioural advertising for people in the EU, EEA (European Economic Area), and Switzerland from ‘Legitimate Interests’ to ‘Consent’,” Meta said in the blog post, according to Reuters.
“There is no immediate impact to our services in the region. Once this change is in place, advertisers will still be able to run personalised advertising campaigns to reach potential customers and grow their businesses. We have factored this change into our business outlook.”
The blog post added that seeking consent “would be a major obstacle” and that it could take at least three months for any changes to be rolled out on Facebook and Instagram.
The Standard has approached Meta for comment about whether this plan will go ahead.
A spokesperson for Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner has confirmed receiving correspondence from Meta about this issue.
How will UK users be affected?
While this is an EU issue, it is likely that any agreement reached with Meta could affect UK users.
“We’re aware of Meta’s plans to seek consent from users for behavioural advertising in the EU, to the exclusion of the UK. This follows related findings by the Court of Justice of the European Union, Irish Data Protection Commission and Norwegian Data Protection Authority,” said ICO’s executive director of regulatory risk, Stephen Almond.
“We are assessing what this means for information rights of people in the UK and considering an appropriate response.”
According to Hannah Pettit, an associate at law firm Ashfords, it is unlikely that Facebook and Instagram will be allowed to continue to collect user data for personalised advertising for very long.
“Behavioural advertising is an area of particular scrutiny for the ICO and there is a focus on rolling out initiatives that allow for meaningful user choice, consent, control and accountability,” she told the Standard.
“We are expecting a further response from the ICO on Meta’s use of behavioural advertising with UK users, which may well result in Meta being forced to collect consent in the UK as well in due course.”
Meta has been busy recently, launching a Twitter rival app Threads and it now plans to introduce personality-driven AI chatbots in September to the service in order to improve user engagement, which has significantly dropped less than a month after launch.
The social media giant has also teamed up with Amazon, Microsoft and TomTom to challenge Google and Apple with a new online mapping initiative.
