Met Police Caught Sharing Crime Victim Data with Facebook
Shock revelation: personal data from people reporting sexual offences, domestic abuse, and other crimes to the Metropolitan Police’s website was passed to Facebook. The info included offence details and users’ Facebook profile codes, sent via a sneaky tool called Meta Pixel embedded on the police site.
Secure Website or Privacy Nightmare?
The Observer reports this data leak happened despite the police’s online reporting form being labelled “secure.” Meta Pixel didn’t just track what victims looked at—it also recorded clicks on pages about contacting police, victim support, and advice on serious crimes like rape, assault, stalking, and fraud.
Dame Vera Baird, ex-victims commissioner, blasted the practice: “You think you are dealing with a public authority you can trust and in fact, you are dealing with Facebook and the wild world of advertising.”
Other Forces Also Under Fire
The Observer’s probe revealed Norfolk and Suffolk police forces also shared sensitive data of those visiting crime-related pages.
The Met Police admitted using Meta Pixel for recruitment ads but promised to scrap the tool from all other website pages. A spokesperson said, “At no point is the personal data inputted by an individual reporting crime ever shared with third parties.”
They added, “The analytical data captured is reserved to the website operator (the police), does not enter the public domain, and no commercial organisation, including providers of analytics and advertising services, can use it.”
Facebook and NHS Also In the Hot Seat
Meta, Facebook’s owner, insists it forbids advertisers from sending sensitive info through Business Tools. “Doing so breaks our policies, and we educate advertisers on proper setup to stop this,” Meta stated.
Earlier, The Observer uncovered 20 NHS trusts sharing patients’ private data with Facebook via Meta Pixels. After the exposé, 17 trusts said they would stop using the tool.
Both Norfolk and Suffolk police, plus the Metropolitan Police, have been contacted for comment as outrage grows over this massive privacy breach.
