BC court certifies class action accusing Home Depot of sharing customer emails
The BC Supreme Court certified a class-action lawsuit Tuesday that accuses Home Depot of asking for customers’ emails to send an electronic receipt and then giving that list of emails to a third party.
The third party in question was Facebook’s parent company, Meta. The customers argued in their submissions that Home Depot gained unjust financial benefit from breaching privacy rules and contractual obligations to people visiting the store.
It all started in 2018 when Home Depot asked customers to enter their email addresses to receive an electronic receipt for their purchase. In addition to emailing the receipt, Home Depot kept customers’ emails on file to create a profile that tracked their purchases.
Home Depot apparently provided Meta with the list of emails to take advantage of a Meta program that allowed a business to track the success of its Facebook advertising campaigns. The business could apparently see how many customers saw a Facebook ad for a particular product and made the real-life purchase — if the email they gave Home Depot was also affiliated with their Facebook account.
The program’s goal was to give businesses insight into how many customers made offline purchases that were similar to online ads they saw on Facebook.
“Based on representations from Meta, Home Depot says it understood that Meta would delete all the hashed email strings once the matching process was complete,” the BC Supreme Court’s certification of the class action reads.
Home Depot estimated it shared close to 7 million customer emails with Meta between 2018 and 2022.
The issue was also the subject of an Ontario Privacy Commissioner (OPC) investigation that began in 2021. In a 2023 release about the case, the OPC said the complainant was trying to delete his Facebook account when he learned the social media company had a record of most of his Home Depot purchases. The OPC said neither Meta nor Home Depot obtained customers’ consent to share this information. Home Depot stopped the practice in 2022 at the OPC’s recommendation.
But Vancouver-based CFM Lawyers believes its clients deserve more than Home Depot changing its practices. Its class members consist of people who made in-person purchases at Home Depots in BC, Saskatchewan, Manitoba or Newfoundland and Labrador.
The BC Supreme Court agreed to certify the case on January 7. Certification allows the case to proceed through the next steps of the legal process and be heard by the court.
“The contemporary business landscape involves the use and deployment of personal information about large numbers of individuals, each of whom may have a limited ability to assert or protect their rights,” the judge wrote. “I am satisfied a class proceeding is the preferable procedure in this case and will provide a fair, efficient and manageable method of determining the common issues and advancing the action.”
Home Depot wouldn’t say much about the case while it’s involved in the legal proceedings.
“We value and respect the privacy of our customers and are committed to the responsible collection and use of information,” a spokesperson said. “We are unable to provide further comment due to the ongoing legal proceeding.”
Another firm, Merchant Law Group, is also pursuing a Canada-wide class action lawsuit that’s been filed with a Saskatchewan court.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Merchant Law Group as the firm behind the BC class action. CFM Lawyers is the firm spearheading the BC Supreme Court class action.Ā