Meta accused of breaking the law by secretly tracking iPhone users

Meta was sued on Wednesday for alleged undisclosed tracking and data collection in its Facebook and Instagram apps on Apple iPhones.

The lawsuit [PDF], filed in a US federal district court in San Francisco, claims that the two applications incorporate use their own browser known as a WKWebView that injects JavaScript code to gather data that would otherwise be unavailable if the apps opened links in the default standalone browser designated by iPhone users.

The claim is based on the findings of security researcher Felix Krause, who last month published an analysis of how WKWebView browsers embedded within native applications can be abused to track people and violate privacy expectations.

"When users click on a link within the Facebook app, Meta automatically directs them to the in-app browser it is monitoring instead of the smartphone’s default browser, without telling users that this is happening or they are being tracked," the complaint says.

"The user information Meta intercepts, monitors and records includes personally identifiable information, private health details, text entries, and other sensitive confidential facts."

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