Research reveals that Facebook continues to permit surveillance advertising targeting children and teenagers, despite previous commitments to adopt a more cautious approach. Surveillance advertising involves the use of personal data collected from websites and platforms to deliver highly targeted ads. This report urges Facebook to publicly clarify its position and to fully discontinue the use of surveillance advertising for young people.

Although Facebook had pledged to take a more “precautionary” stance following pressure from youth advocacy groups, researchers found little evidence of meaningful change. By analysing conversion Application Programming Interfaces (API), such as Facebook Pixel, they assessed whether these data sources influenced the advertising content shown to young users. The findings indicate that the only adjustment made was the optimization of ad targeting through Facebook’s advanced AI-driven ‘Delivery System’.