Meta to stop targeting UK citizen with personalised ads after settling privacy case.

  • 2025-04-09 08:00:00
  • The Guardian

In 2022, human rights activist Tanya O'Carroll launched a lawsuit against one of the leading tech companies, Meta. According to the complaint, the company had refused the woman's requests to stop collecting and processing her data on Facebook, behavior that went against U.K. laws on handling personal data.

The allegation was directly supported by the U.K. data watchdog, a position that considerably influenced the coverage and impact of the case at hand.  O'Carroll's experience was never solely an individual matter: the right to object to the use of one's data for marketing purposes is fundamental and must be respected.

The case was settled in late March 2025, with O'Carroll winning and Meta promising to stop using her personal data to target tailored advertisements. In addition, the information commissioner's office (ICO) proposed to introduce an “opt-out” option, to allow users to directly decide the fate of their data.