Should there be a legal right to privacy? Facebook is being taken to court over the personal information it collects to help advertisers — and the case could cost it billions.
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Woman sues Facebook for 'invasive' adverts
Should there be a legal right to privacy? Facebook is being taken to court over the personal information it collects to help advertisers - and the case could cost it billions.
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Soon after becoming a mother, Tanya O'Carroll noticed something very strange. Every time she went on Facebook, she saw advertisements for baby products. She tried to stop the ads by changing her Facebook settings - but they just kept coming.
O'Carroll decided to find out exactly how much Facebook knew about her - and was horrified.
It knew where she liked to go on holiday, what kind of clothes she bought and what type of films she enjoyed. It also knew about far more personal things, such as her health and family.
O'Carroll is now suing Meta, the company that owns Facebook. She wants to stop it using information about her to sell ads.
The case could cost social media companies a huge amount of money. If they are not allowed to collect so much information, businesses will be less keen to advertise with them.
This is not the first time Meta has been taken to court. In June, the US Department of Justice forced it to stop using algorithmsAny set of rules followed by a computer. In the context of social media, "the algorithm" refers to the intelligent AI that learns the interests of the user and presents them with posts that it thinks will interest them. which meant that some people were not shown housing ads because of their race, sex or age.
In September, the Irish government fined Instagram €405m (£351m) for not protecting children's data properly. In some cases their phone numbers and email addresses could easily be found.
In most countries you need to be at least 13 to have a Facebook account. But research in the US1 found that 32% of children aged 7 to 9 used social media, and around 50% of children aged 10 to 12.
In Britain, the government has set up a department to stop tech companies abusing their power. Along with the European CommissionThe executive body of the EU, responsible for suggesting new EU laws and overseeing their implementation. , it is looking at whether Facebook is guilty of this.
Asked why she did not simply close her Facebook account, O'Carroll said: "It is just not something that people feel that they can leave - and even if they wanted to, where do they go?"
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Should there be a legal right to privacy?
Yes: Our privacy is constantly being undermined, both by tech companies and by governments. Without proper protection, we could all find ourselves living in police states under constant surveillance.
No: Wealthy people and companies already use lawyers to intimidate anyone who wants to expose their wrongdoings. A right to privacy would allow them to do that even more frequently.
Or... It is a nice idea, but it would be very difficult to define what a right to privacy should cover. And some people live in such crowded conditions that it would be impossible to assert that right.
Keywords
Algorithms - Any set of rules followed by a computer. In the context of social media, "the algorithm" refers to the intelligent AI that learns the interests of the user and presents them with posts that it thinks will interest them.
European Commission - The executive body of the EU, responsible for suggesting new EU laws and overseeing their implementation.
Woman sues Facebook for ‘invasive’ adverts
O'Carroll's quarrel: Facebook, owned by Meta, controls between 40% and 50% of social media advertising. Glossary
Algorithms - Any set of rules followed by a computer. In the context of social media, “the algorithm” refers to the intelligent AI that learns the interests of the user and presents them with posts that it thinks will interest them.
European Commission - The executive body of the EU, responsible for suggesting new EU laws and overseeing their implementation.