Monzo app includes Google Ads and Google/Facebook tracking libraries

Not for me.

I don’t consent to Monzo telling anyone whether I hold an account with them or not. That’s my information: not to be shared with Facebook or anyone else without my agreement.

10 Likes

You actually have already given Monzo consent by agreeing to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy. Relevant section copied below.!

Edit: slight amendment to point out that you need to click to expand the image to see the relevant section. It’s not the bit in the preview. Or you can go here: https://monzo.com/legal/privacy-notice/

1 Like

I don’t think the Information Commissioner would agree that this would fall under the legitimate interest exemption.

6 Likes

6 posts were merged into an existing topic: Removed Posts - February

I agree with this but in your opinion what do you think of this line in the privacy policy from the text I’ve copied above? Does this not give users the option of using the app without sharing data?

You can disable or reset your mobile advertising ID in your device’s operating system.

No - if only as that statement would affect every app on your phone and is not specific to Monzo.

Fair. Wonder whether this will be addressed in the response we hear from Monzo? I can’t imagine they would have put this in though without the appropriate legal advice?

12 posts were merged into an existing topic: Removed Posts - February

This topic is temporarily closed for at least 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.

This topic is temporarily closed for at least 4 hours due to a large number of community flags.

Hi all,

Thanks for your patience! Sorry it took a while to post a full update.

Based on the comments in the thread, we’ve taken the time to do a full review of our set up. We really care about this, so wanted to take the time to get it right.

I wanted to explain where we’re at today. As we outline in our privacy notice, we use “Your mobile advertising ID, so we can share it with companies that help us with advertising online. You can reset this ID or limit tracking in ‘Settings’ on your phone.” This is a pseudo-anonymous identifier, generated by your phone, designed to show more relevant ads to you in a privacy safe manner. We use this mainly to exclude existing customers from seeing Monzo adverts (for obvious reasons), as well as making sure we’re showing the right ads to the right people. We made the decision to use it because we think it’s one of the most privacy-friendly options — and we don’t pair it with any identifying information when sending. Based on the feedback here though, it’s clear we can do more to help you control this, so we’re going to build a switch to let you control this in the Monzo app.

Some of you also spotted that the Facebook tool showed a large number of events coming from the Monzo app, whereby there was an event for every app open. This was a bug that only occurred on iOS devices — we’d fixed it on Android last year (see higher up this thread here), but unfortunately the iOS fix was not released. We’re sorry it’s taken so long, we know this isn’t good enough and we’re putting in place a process to stop this happening in future. It’s now fixed in today’s iOS app release.

We’ve decided to go one step further though and, as of today’s app releases on both iOS and Android, the Facebook SDK is no longer in the Monzo app. This means we can fully control what data is sent to Facebook from our backend, and we will no longer be making requests to Facebook directly from your device, so your IP Address will no longer be shared with them.

It’s also clear that we can do more to ensure our customers are aware of what’s happening behind the scenes. We’ve always worked to be as open and transparent as possible and this is no different. We’ll be adding clear, useful wording as part of the sign-up flow in the Monzo app to explain what we share and why, and reviewing the same on our website.

And finally, to reiterate: we do not share personal data with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes without permission from the customer. We do not sell customer data to third parties for marketing purposes. We never share balance, transactions or any sensitive information for marketing purposes. The above is just to help us run ads for Monzo more effectively and you can opt out any time in your device settings.

I hope that helps and answers the questions you (rightly) have!

58 Likes

Thanks for listening Monzo and thanks for the detail @tristan

6 Likes

Thank you for the detailed response and effort in compiling the facts :slight_smile: It’s very much appreciated.

2 Likes

Serms like a fair and balanced response which should hopefully draw a line under it. I suspect it won’t though.

5 Likes

I was upset with this, but kudos to Monzo for dealing with this issue with the app head-on.

Maybe it will make the app lighter, too. :slight_smile:

Thank you for the update @tristan !

4 Likes

Thank you for taking these concerns seriously, and taking the time to properly review and address the issue. Glad to see the spirit and ethos of little Monzo from 2016 has survived your massive growth. :hot_coral_heart:

9 Likes

Thanks for all the detail. Great to see Monzo respond to concerns in this way.

2 Likes

Bravo for the detailed response. I can’t think of any other banks that would do this. :clap::clap:

7 Likes

I’d say that this was a necessary step, and I’m extremely happy to see it happen. :heart_eyes:

6 Likes

Thanks for the feedback.

I wonder though, would any of this have happened without the complaints on the community? It seems like a lot of effort was made (both here and via support) to downplay the issue as it being “just” the advertising ID being shared even though that’s not the case.

Is anything being done regarding misleading information in the privacy policy (up until now you haven’t acknowledged the fact that the Facebook SDK shares more data than just the advertising ID) to make sure this doesn’t happen again?

9 Likes