Illegal data use
UK gambling companies have been illegally sharing customer data with Meta, the owner of Facebook, according to an investigation from UK newspaper The Observer.
without the explicit consent of the user, the practice is illegal in the UK
Dozens of sites used a tool embedded in the page to share data with Meta for the purposes of targeted advertising, according to the report. Without the explicit consent of the user, the practice is illegal in the UK, but gambling operators were found to be in violation of the law.
As a result, any user visiting Facebook was subsequently hit with multiple gambling advertisements, despite not having clicked on anything to give their explicit consent, a requirement of EU law which was kept in the UK after their exit from the bloc.
Internal errors blamed
The Observer investigated 150 gambling websites for the report and found that over a third had shared customer data automatically using the Meta Pixel tracking tool. The sites named included Sporting Index, Bwin, and 10bet.
Speaking on the issue, Iain Duncan Smith, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling reform, said: “The use of tools such as Meta Pixel without explicit consent seems wholly in breach of the law and should be immediately stopped.”
our regulatory structure and codes of practice are repeatedly shown to be inadequate”
“The gambling industry’s marketing practices are now out of control, and our regulatory structure and codes of practice are repeatedly shown to be inadequate,” he added. “This cannot go on.”
Operators which showed adverts to the users following the misuse of their data included well-known names such as Ladbrokes, SkyBet, and Bet365, although these companies had not themselves broken any rules or illegally shared any data.
After The Guardian reached out to the operators that broke the law, several removed the tracking tool from their pages. A spokesperson for Bwin responded: “Due to an internal error, the promotional page was not fully aligned with other group sites. We are deeply committed to ensuring that personal data is handled appropriately and have taken immediate action to rectify the issue.”
Regulators could act
The brands mentioned in the report are likely to face the ire of UK regulators, which have often taken a dim view of operators breaching laws concerning customer data.
Last month, Sky Betting and Gaming was the latest betting company to be found breaching data laws when targeted ads were sent to a customer suffering from gambling addiction.
Wolfie Christl, a data privacy expert, was also quoted in The Observer, saying: “Sharing data with Meta is highly problematic, even with consent, but doing so without explicit informed consent shows a blatant disregard for the law.”
“Meta is complicit and must be held accountable,” Christl continued. “It benefits from facilitating problematic and unlawful data practices for its clients and systematically looks the other way, using its terms and conditions as a shield rather than seriously enforcing them.”