US Court Certifies 4 Classes in Lawsuit Over Meta’s Tracking of Health Data
Key Facts
On October 30, 2026, Judge William H. Orrick certified four classes of plaintiffs in a lawsuit accusing Meta of using its Pixel tool to intercept health data and transmit it for advertising purposes. Cohen Milstein, co-lead counsel in the class action, said the judge approved the plaintiffs’ motion to certify the four classes. The ruling allows members of those classes to pursue the case as a class action, according to the law firm. The ruling included exceptions concerning a limited claim under California’s wiretapping law and redefined a claim under the state’s computer access law. Certification does not determine that Meta is liable for the alleged violations, nor does it include an award of damages.
The plaintiffs say Meta’s Pixel tool intercepted patients’ protected health information and sent it to Meta for use in advertising on Facebook and Instagram. These are allegations made by consumers in the case, and the ruling did not establish the company’s liability. According to Cohen Milstein, the plaintiffs’ experts identified at least 664 hospital systems or websites operated by medical providers through which they say Meta received patient data using the tool. That figure indicates the broad range of entities covered by the experts’ analysis, but remains an estimate presented by the plaintiffs’ experts. The case relates to the use of business tools that allow Pixel to be embedded on websites operated by third parties. The dispute centers on whether the tool transmitted protected health information to the company for advertising purposes, an issue the class certification ruling did not resolve.
In its quarterly disclosure for the quarter ended in September 2026, Meta listed the healthcare lawsuit among multiple potential class actions accusing it of receiving individuals’ information from external websites or apps through its business tools. The company described these cases as allegations, and listing the lawsuit among them did not establish its liability. Meta said the lawsuits seek unspecified damages and injunctions barring alleged practices. It also said the cases had reached different stages, and that some of its motions to dismiss claims in this group had been denied in whole or in part, while others had been granted in whole or in part. The disclosure did not specify the status of each motion in the healthcare data lawsuit individually. This reflects the broader course of disputes over user data reaching the company through its business tools, while the outcome of the specific case before the court remains unresolved.
Meta shares edged lower to close at $611.01 on November 2, 2026, according to EL7 daily closing data. The close came after the class certification ruling on October 30, but does not establish that the case caused the share move. The available data did not include verified share prices for other technology companies that day, so it provides no market comparison between Meta and its peers. The certification ruling gives the plaintiffs concerned a shared framework for continuing litigation, while questions of liability and damages remain open. The scope of the California claims also remains subject to the exceptions in the ruling, including the narrowing of a computer access claim. The quarterly disclosure did not specify a date for a subsequent hearing or procedural step in the case.