In a new report, members of Congress revealed that H&R Block, TaxSlayer, and TaxAct, three popular tax preparation companies, have been sharing the personal financial information of about 10 million people with tech giants Google and Facebook. The companies used tracking technology called pixels to collect user data, which included sensitive financial information. Although the data was intended to be anonymous, the legislators argued that it could be easily de-anonymized. Lawmakers involved in the congressional investigation have urged the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against the tax companies for violating client information protection laws. H&R Block and TaxAct stated that they had changed their practices to stop sharing sensitive user data, while TaxSlayer did not respond to inquiries. Meta and Google emphasized their policies against the collection and use of sensitive data in response to the report.
