Some of America’s largest tax-prep companies have spent years sharing Americans’ sensitive financial data with tech titans including Meta and Google in a potential violation of federal law — data that in some cases was misused for targeted advertising, according to a seven-month congressional investigation.
It’s worth noting that the report doesn’t seem to claim any deliberate bad action on the part of Google or Facebook. Those companies didn’t ask the tax preparers to send them taxpayers’ private data; they certainly didn’t pay them for that private data; and it’s possible that no human being at those companies even knew they were receiving taxpayers’ private data.
Rather, the tax preparers installed Google Analytics and Meta Pixel on their own web sites, just the same as many other site owners do. If you run a web site, you can do that just by signing up online and adding some code to your web pages. You don’t have to have a business deal with the tech companies; and they don’t have to manually review your usage before you install their code onto your site.
However, by doing this on pages that contained private user data, the tax preparers thereby disclosed that user data to those tech companies. And, as with any other usage of those analytics systems, this data got ingested into those tech companies’ ads systems.
The tax preparers have an obligation to their users to keep their financial data secure. Treating a web page containing a user’s financial information as if it was just a random web page and installing Google Analytics or Meta Pixel on it, is a violation of that trust.
Thank you for the update and elaboration.
Yeah, part of the issue is likely them not understanding how the technology works. A lot of companies contact with Google and Facebook to track how ad campaigns on those platforms lead break to their site, and the easiest - often recommended - way is just “here’s a JavaScript snippet, stick it in your global page header and it will just work” without revealing the implications to customers visiting the site.
Didn’t the same happened with medical service which added the meta pixel ?
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to me anymore, but alas; the ruthlessness and morraly bankrupt practices that governs some American companies is surprising…
I appreciate living in the EU and the fight taking place here for my data rights. Although deep down I’m aware that similar practices surely are happening here, they just haven’t been uncovered yet.
Edit: As mentioned in a comment above, it appears to be an error. However, the morally issue remains. I don’t understand how one can handle sensitive information so carelessly.
They have to make money somehow!
Well there be a class action, I wonder?
I work for a certain government agency and under UNAX I absolutely cannot share any of that information without proper disclosure. I could lose my job or be arrested depending on the circumstances.
Fucking wow! Now this surprises me. I wonder what other PII information is being shared with Google, Meta, et al. 🙀
We need HIPAA but for financial information, I don’t think one is necessarily more sensitive than the other. The penalties for leaking, or failing to ensure the integrity of medical records can be severe.
