Costco faces class-action lawsuit over allegations it shared customers' health info with Meta

Warehouse retailer Costco is facing a class-action lawsuit after allegedly sharing customers' health and personal information with Facebook's parent company, Meta, the Seattle Times reported Monday.

The lawsuit, filed in Washington Western District Court by four California residents, seeks class-action status. The plaintiffs filed a summons, giving Costco 21 days to respond to the complaint.

The outlet stated that the suit accused Costco of installing Meta Pixel, a code that allows website owners to track visitor activity, on its website. According to the lawsuit, the analytics tool collected sensitive information about customers without their consent.

The code was installed on the health care portion of Costco's website, allegedly providing Meta with detailed personal data. Customers must provide sensitive health information to use the retailer's online pharmacy services, which include prescription refills, vaccine scheduling, and home delivery, the Seattle Times reported.

"Costco represents to patients that its website, which includes its pharmacy webpages, is a secure platform," the suit stated. "Yet, Costco fails to disclose or omits the fact that it shares patient online activities and personal health information with Meta via Pixel."

Health and personal data "has become a highly-desirable commodity," the complaint noted.

The suit argues that Costco's use of tracking services like Meta Pixel violates its guarantee to keep customers' data private and secure.

The lawsuit claimed that the Pixel code acts as a "traditional wiretap" by allowing Costco to "secretly" record and transmit data. It also accuses the retailer of allowing Meta to collect health care-related communications from its website.

Information given to Meta included prescriptions, treatments, health insurance coverage, and patient location, the complaint claimed. The technology company could then monetize that health and personal data by selling advertisements to insurance companies, the lawsuit added.

"Indeed, one of the world's most valuable resources is the exchange of personal data," the suit said. "Yet, Costco fails to disclose or omits the fact that it shares patient online activities and health information with Meta via Pixel."

Meta is not named in the lawsuit.

A Meta spokesperson told the outlet, "Advertisers should not send sensitive information about people through our business tools."

"Doing so is against our policies and we educate advertisers on properly setting up business tools to prevent this from occurring," it added.

Costco said that it will not comment on pending litigation, the Seattle Times reported.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!