Meta Appeals Nigerian Ruling on Facebook Ad Tracking

Meta is taking a Nigerian court fight over personalised advertising to the Court of Appeal. The company filed a notice of appeal on September 30 after a Lagos High Court ruled that its processing of Facebook and Instagram users’ data for behavioural ads, without a lawful basis, breached their privacy rights. The decision could force a closer look at what people actually agree to when they join an ad-funded social network.

The judgment was delivered on September 25 by Justice A.F. Pokanu in the Ikorodu Judicial Division, according to BusinessDay’s report of the case. The court ordered Meta to stop unlawful data processing and profiling, bring its practices into compliance and file an affidavit of compliance within eight weeks. It also awarded the applicants the naira equivalent of $100,000 in general damages and N1 million in costs.

The suit was brought by the Laws and Rights Awareness Initiative and five individuals. They challenged Meta’s collection and analysis of their personal information for targeted advertising. Meta argued that its free services are financed by advertising and that people accept its terms and privacy policy when signing up. The judge rejected the idea that behavioural profiling automatically becomes necessary to provide a social network simply because the business model depends on ads.

This is the question at the heart of the appeal. A person may want to message friends or share a photograph without agreeing to every form of tracking used to sell ads. If the lower court’s approach is upheld, a broad click-through to standard terms may not be enough to establish a lawful basis for the particular processing being challenged. The ruling does not, by itself, amount to a general ban on all advertising on Facebook or Instagram in Nigeria.

The case also reaches beyond the adverts people see in their feeds. BusinessDay reports that the judge found problems with Meta’s transfers of Nigerian users’ data outside the country. Meta said it has no data centre in Nigeria and that users effectively send information abroad by using its platforms. The court’s response was that users do not decide where their data is stored or processed, and that the company remains responsible for its obligations under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023.

For Meta, this is about the legal foundation of a valuable advertising system, not just the damages award. For Nigerians, it asks whether the price of entry to widely used social platforms can include extensive profiling that is difficult to refuse separately. That tension will matter to other international services that move local users’ information across borders.

The Lagos case should not be confused with separate regulatory disputes over Meta’s data practices. TechBooky has examined another Nigerian privacy enforcement decision involving Meta, but this appeal concerns a specific High Court judgment brought by private applicants. Whether the orders are stayed, varied or upheld will depend on further court action. Filing an appeal alone should not be treated as proof that the judgment has been suspended.