Facebook, Instagram continue to collect browsing data from minors: Researchers

Researchers from activist groups Global Action Plan, Reset Australia, and Fairplay found that both platforms still use tracking software in the form of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)— to monitor the web browsing data of minors for advertising purposes.

This development has come after Facebook in July announced changes to its advertising rules for children, claiming to have ‘heard from youth advocates’ about these concerns.  Facebook is quoted in the research white paper, stating that “we agree with them (privacy advocates), which is why we’re taking a more precautionary approach in how advertisers can reach young people.”

However, the research alleges that Facebook has not limited the use of surveillance advertising. The report highlighted that Facebook is still harvesting children’s personal data to fuel their advertising delivery system. “Facebook is still using the vast amount of data it collects about young people in order to determine which children are most likely to be vulnerable to a given ad,” the research stated.

The only difference is that the targeting is now optimised by a highly trained AI Delivery System. “The replacement of targeting ‘selected by advertisers’ with targeting ‘selected by an AI delivery system’ does not represent a demonstrable improvement for children in the way that Facebook characterised in their announcement and reiterated at a US Senate committee hearing. This is not a precautionary approach. Given the predictive power of AI, this system may in fact be worse for children,” the research added.

Meanwhile, the researchers have demanded Facebook to provide more transparency about the impacts of its recent rule changes in advertising to teens and clarify if this is an improvement for children.

Responding to the allegations, a Meta spokesperson, in a statement, as quoted by The Guardian said: “It’s wrong to say that because we show data in our transparency tools it’s automatically used for ads. We don’t use data from our advertisers’ and partners’ websites and apps to personalise ads to people under 18. The reason this information shows up in our transparency tools is because teens visit sites or apps that use our business tools. We want to provide transparency into the data we receive, even if it’s not used for ads personalisation.”

Earlier, in September, Instagram was accused of negatively impacting teenage audiences. In the case of teenage girls, the app likely contributed to worsening body image issues, a report by the Wall Street Journal had cautioned. After which, the company paused the rollout of Instagram Kids, an app for children under the age of 13.