SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) - Facebook's Meta Pixel has allowed it to intercept communications between individuals and their health care providers, a class action lawsuit alleges.
An anonymous plaintiff filed suit Aug. 15 against Meta Platforms through lawyers at Cohen Milsten and Brent & Fiol in California federal court. The suit says Facebook induces companies to use the Meta Pixel, which allows Facebook to be a peeping Tom.
The suit says Facebook has been criticized for selling the data in its users' profiles and for surveilling them while on Facebook.
"Less well known, however, is that for more than a decade, Facebook has used a tracking pixel - known as the Meta Pixel - to track Facebook users off the Facebook platform," the suit says. "The Meta Pixel tracks what actions Facebook users take on websites that have installed the Meta Pixel and sends that information to Facebook."
The suit calls it "an egregious breach of social norms" that has led to Facebook monitoring conversations between users and their health care providers. A report by Markup found that 33 hospitals out of 100 tested used the Meta Pixel to send data on when patients scheduled doctors' appointments.