Data Sharing with Third-Party Partners

What it is

Meta shares your personal data with a wide range of third parties including advertisers, analytics partners, measurement companies, vendors, researchers, and law enforcement, for purposes including ad targeting, measurement, and safety.

Why it matters (compliance & governance perspective)

The breadth of third parties with whom Meta may share user data, combined with the range of purposes stated, means your information may flow to organizations and entities you have no direct relationship with, for purposes beyond your original reason for using Meta's services.

This document changed recently

Consumer impact (what this means for users)

This provision means your personal data, including behavioral and inferred data, may be shared with advertisers, analytics companies, and other partners as part of Meta's standard business operations, with your primary recourse being the privacy controls Meta provides rather than the ability to prevent sharing entirely.

What you can do

Institutional analysis (Compliance & governance intelligence)

1) REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: This provision engages GDPR requirements for data sharing with third parties, including obligations to establish appropriate legal bases for each sharing relationship, to implement data processing agreements where processors are involved, and to conduct due diligence on recipients. CCPA/CPRA's definitions of 'sharing' for cross-context behavioral advertising and 'selling' are directly relevant. Law enforcement sharing implicates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and equivalent national frameworks. 2) GOVERNANCE EXPOSURE: High. The breadth of sharing categories, from advertisers to researchers to law enforcement, creates diverse compliance obligations. The policy's relatively high-level description of sharing categories, without specifying contractual protections for each category, may fall short of GDPR's transparency requirements regarding the identity of recipients or categories of recipients. 3) JURISDICTION FLAGS: EU/EEA users are entitled to information about specific recipients or categories of recipients under GDPR Article 13/14. California residents have rights to know about third parties with whom their data is shared. International data transfers to third countries must be covered by appropriate safeguards such as SCCs or an adequacy decision. 4) CONTRACT AND VENDOR IMPLICATIONS: Organizations that are themselves recipients of Meta-shared data, such as measurement partners or analytics vendors, should ensure their own data use is consistent with the purposes for which Meta transferred the data. B2B contracts with Meta should specify data use restrictions and security obligations. 5) COMPLIANCE CONSIDERATIONS: Compliance teams should assess whether Meta's data processing agreements, where applicable, meet GDPR Article 28 requirements. The law enforcement sharing disclosure should be reviewed in the context of applicable national laws and organizational policies on government data requests.

Applicable agencies

Applicable regulations

Provision details

Other risks in this policy

• Off-Platform Activity Tracking high
• Cross-Product Data Combination for Advertising high
• Sensitive Data Collection and Inference high
• Data Retention Without Fixed Periods medium
• User Rights and Control Mechanisms medium
• Advertising Personalization and Targeting high

Related Analysis

• Meta Removed 438 Sentences From Its Privacy Policy. Here Is What Disappeared.

  ConductAtlas detected a major restructuring of Meta’s privacy policy that removed detailed consumer rights disclosures and relocated them to separate documents.

• 23andMe Is Bankrupt. What Happens to Your DNA Now?

  Your genetic data may be transferred to a new owner as a business asset. Here is what the Terms of Service actually say and what you can do right now.