• by Wendy Davis , Yesterday

Siding with Seattle Children's Hospital, Washington state's highest court has thrown out a claim that the hospital violated the state's wiretap law by allegedly sending Meta information about users' search activity on the hospital's site via the Meta Pixel.

In a ruling issued late last week, the Washington Supreme Court said the state wiretap law -- which prohibits interception of communications between two or more "individuals" without their consent -- doesn't cover "searches and clicks that generate an automated response."

The ruling, authored by Justice Theodore Angelis, grew out of a lawsuit brought in October 2023 by three plaintiffs -- Carly Baker, Janssen Ramos Savoie, and Amber Shavies -- who alleged that they visited the Seattle Children's Hospital's site and searched for information. 

They said in a class-action complaint that they used the hospital site's search functionality to learn about matters such as medical conditions, symptoms, health care providers and the like. They also alleged that Meta used that data for ad targeting.

Angelis, joined by six other justices, wrote that the "plain language" of the state wiretap law only covers transmissions between "two or more individuals."

"Because only one individual was involved in each communication, the plaintiffs do not have a claim," he wrote.

Two justices concurred in the result, but for different reasons.

The ruling marks at least the second time a state's highest court has said online tracking doesn't violate a state wiretap law. In 2024, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 5-4 that hospitals don't run afoul of that state's law by allegedly transmitting data about website visitors' browsing activity to Google and Meta.

The judges said in that matter that the transmissions covered by the Massachusetts wiretap statute do not include online tracking data.