EU top court prohibits Meta from using public sexual orientation data

Meta is prohibited from using personal data related to sexual orientation, collected from public sources outside its platform, to tailor advertising directed at its users, as ruled by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on October 4th. This ruling came in a case initiated by Austrian privacy advocate Max Schrems against the tech company.

Schrems, who is openly gay, filed a complaint in an Austrian court in 2020 after receiving ads on Meta’s Facebook targeted at homosexuals. He had publicly commented on his sexuality but objected to Meta’s use of this information for targeted online advertising.

Schrems has previously succeeded in challenging EU-US data transfer agreements.

According to the ECJ’s ruling, if someone openly discusses their sexuality in a public forum, third parties must process that data in accordance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

This, as ‘Euronews’ writes, means that online platforms are “not authorised to process other data related to that person’s sexual orientation obtained outside the platform, with a view to aggregating and analysing those data, in order to offer that person personalised advertising.”

In a non-binding opinion released in April, the court’s Advocate General Athanasios Rantos supported Schrems’ position.

“The Court should rule that the GDPR precludes the processing of personal data for the purposes of targeted advertising without restriction as to time,” Rantos stated at the time.

“A public statement by the user of a social network about his or her sexual orientation renders those data 'manifestly public', without, however, permitting their processing for the purposes of personalised advertising.”

Schrems’ lawyer, Katharina Raabe-Stuppnig, expressed that she was “very pleased by the ruling, even though this result was very much expected," in a statement.

“Meta has basically been building a huge data pool on users for 20 years now, and it is growing every day. However, EU law requires 'data minimisation'. Following this ruling only a small part of Meta's data pool will be allowed to be used for advertising - even when users consent to ads. This ruling also applies to any other online advertisement company that does not have stringent data deletion practices,” she added.