The Court of Justice of the European Union has recently mandated that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, reduce its data collection for personalized advertising purposes. This decision stems from a lawsuit filed by Austrian privacy advocate Max Schrems, who claimed that the tech company used personal data—including sensitive information about his sexual orientation—to tailor advertisements specifically to him.
In its decision, the CJEU highlighted that platforms like Facebook must not indiscriminately utilize all personal data for targeted advertising, without considering the duration and type of data collected. The court underscored that even if Schrems voluntarily disclosed his sexual orientation, this does not grant the platform operator the right to process related data collected outside the platform for the purpose of aggregating and analyzing it to deliver personalized ads.
In response, a Meta spokesperson reassured that the company takes data privacy very seriously, noting it has invested over five billion euros in embedding privacy into its products. According to Schrems' legal representative, Katharina Raabe-Stuppnig, Meta has constructed a vast data reservoir over two decades, expanding daily. However, under EU law, the principle of 'data minimization' must be upheld. Following this ruling, only a limited portion of Meta's data collection will be permissible for advertising purposes, even when users consent to such ads.
