Developers are prohibited from using Meta's APIs and user data to build surveillance tools or to track people's movements, online behavior, or social connections without those people knowing or agreeing.
This analysis describes what Meta's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This provision establishes operational boundaries on permissible use cases for the Platform and its data outputs. By restricting surveillance applications, the clause defines what derivative uses Meta does not authorize or permit under the service terms.
Interpretive note: The definition of 'surveillance tools' is not precisely defined in the visible document, creating potential ambiguity about whether legitimate analytics or moderation tools could be characterized as prohibited surveillance.
End users on Meta's platforms benefit from this prohibition, as it is designed to prevent developers from building tools that could be used to track their physical location, monitor their online behavior, or map their social relationships without consent.
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engage in any of the foregoing in connection with the use, creation, development, modification, prompting, fine-tuning, training, testing, benchmarking or validation of any machine learning tool, model, system, algorithm, product or other technology.
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"You must not use Platform to monitor, survey, or track people without their knowledge or consent. This includes using Platform Data to build surveillance tools or to facilitate the tracking of people's physical movements, online activity, or associations.— Excerpt from Meta's Meta Platform Policy
(1) REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: Surveillance-related data use engages the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, state wiretapping laws, and GDPR in EU/EEA jurisdictions. Location tracking without consent may separately engage state biometric and location privacy laws, including Illinois BIPA and California's state privacy framework. The FTC has enforcement authority over deceptive and unfair surveillance-related data practices. Law enforcement use of commercial surveillance tools has attracted attention from state AGs and federal legislators. (2) GOVERNANCE EXPOSURE: High for any developer operating in security, analytics, journalism, or public sector contexts where platform data might be used to track individuals. The prohibition on building 'surveillance tools' is broad and may require legal analysis to determine whether specific analytics or monitoring applications fall within the prohibited category. (3) JURISDICTION FLAGS: EU/EEA developers face the strictest constraints, as GDPR generally prohibits covert processing of personal data for surveillance purposes without a lawful basis. Illinois BIPA may be relevant if tracking involves biometric data derived from images or other biometric identifiers accessible through Meta's platform. California's CCPA and the California Privacy Rights Act impose additional constraints on location data and sensitive personal information. (4) CONTRACT AND VENDOR IMPLICATIONS: Developers should audit their applications for any functionality that could be characterized as surveillance or covert tracking. Sub-processor agreements should expressly prohibit surveillance use cases. Procurement teams assessing Meta API-integrated vendors should include surveillance use-case questions in due diligence questionnaires. (5) COMPLIANCE CONSIDERATIONS: Legal and compliance teams should assess whether any current application features could be characterized as surveillance tools under the definition implied by this provision. Privacy impact assessments should include surveillance use-case analysis. Any application that enables location tracking, behavioral monitoring, or social network mapping should be reviewed against this prohibition and applicable law.
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This provision establishes operational boundaries on permissible use cases for the Platform and its data outputs. By restricting surveillance applications, the clause defines what derivative uses Meta does not authorize or permit under the service terms.
End users on Meta's platforms benefit from this prohibition, as it is designed to prevent developers from building tools that could be used to track their physical location, monitor their online behavior, or map their social relationships without consent.
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