A magistrate judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina recommended dismissal of a putative Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) class action on Article III standing grounds. The decision underscores that, at least in the Fourth Circuit, VPPA claims premised on the use of tracking pixels and disclosures to a single large platform provider (here, Meta) may fail absent allegations of broader dissemination or tangible intrusion into users’ lives.
The Allegations: VPPA Claims Based on Meta Pixel Use
Plaintiffs, Pennsylvania residents, used Nurse.com, to obtain continuing education courses containing audio and video materials. To access courses, they provided identifying information (including names) and used an internet-connected device with web-browsing software.
Unbeknownst to them, defendant deployed Meta’s tracking technologies:
- Meta Pixel: Embedded code that, when loaded, instructed users’ browsers to send information to Meta about on-site activity (pages viewed, clicks, cart actions, purchases).
- Facebook ID (FID): For logged-in Facebook users, Meta could link browsing activity to a specific user via a unique identifier transmitted with the URL.
- CAPI (Conversions API): A companion tool using website data (rather than browser data) to communicate events to Meta.
According to the amended complaint, the combination of Pixel and CAPI allowed Meta—or anyone with the disclosed code—to identify which specific videos each plaintiff requested or obtained on defendant’s sites, tied to their Facebook accounts.
Standing Framework: Spokeo, TransUnion, and the “Close Relationship” Test
Relying heavily on Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, the magistrate judge framed the standing inquiry as follows:
- Article III requires a concrete, particularized, actual or imminent injury, fairly traceable to the defendant, and redressable by the court.
- A statutory cause of action does not automatically create Article III standing; plaintiffs cannot rely on “bare procedural violations.”
- For intangible harms, courts must ask whether the alleged injury bears a “close relationship” to a harm traditionally recognized as a basis for a lawsuit in American courts.
- Plaintiffs need not show a perfect historical match, but they cannot “circumvent a fundamental requirement” of the analog tort.
Public Disclosure of Private Facts: Disclosures to One Company Are Not “Publicity”
Plaintiffs argued that defendant’s disclosure of their viewing data to Meta resembled the tort of public disclosure of private facts, which, under Fourth Circuit precedent (Holmes v. Elephant Insurance Co.), requires:
- A disclosure,
- To the public,
- Of true but private information,
- That would be highly offensive to a reasonable person and is not of legitimate public concern.
The Fourth Circuit in Elephant Insurance emphasized that:
- The tort is limited to sensitive personal information (e.g., inherently shameful facts, serious illnesses, or comparably private data).
- Publicity requires broad dissemination—information made available to the public at large or to so many people that it is essentially public. It is not satisfied by disclosure to a small group or a single intermediary.
Applying this framework, the magistrate judge concluded:
- Plaintiffs alleged disclosure only to Meta, a single company. Even acknowledging Meta’s size, that does not equate to content being “made public” or “sure to reach the public.”
- There was no allegation that Meta or any person actually viewed or read the specific video information, as opposed to automated processing. Following TransUnion, publicity typically requires information to be “actually read and not merely processed.”
- Plaintiffs did not allege that their viewing information had become “generally accessible.”
The magistrate judge cited both Elephant Insurance and other circuit authority (e.g., Nabozny v. Optio Solutions LLC) to reinforce that transmission to a single “ministerial intermediary” does not resemble the publicity element of the tort.
Result: The alleged harm was “different in kind, not degree” from public disclosure of private facts and thus could not support standing under that analogy.
Intrusion Upon Seclusion: No Alleged Intrusive Contact or Targeted Outreach
Plaintiffs next argued that their injury was akin to intrusion upon seclusion, which under the Restatement and the Fourth Circuit (American Federation of Teachers v. Bessent; Krakauer v. Dish Network; Garey v. James S. Farrin) involves:
- An intentional intrusion upon a person’s solitude or private affairs,
- In a manner highly offensive to a reasonable person,
- Typically through physical invasion or other investigative/examining conduct.
Critically, Bessent clarifies that:
- Intrusion upon seclusion protects against the feeling of unease or disturbance when one should be at peace—“targeted snooping” or harassment.
- It is not aimed at the harm from disclosure of sensitive information as such, nor does it require publicity.
- Classic examples include:
- A reporter confronting a convalescing patient in a hospital room,
- A detective repeatedly peering through a bedroom window,
- Opportunistic photography capturing intimate moments,
- Repeated telemarketing calls to numbers on a do-not-call list (Krakauer),
- Unwanted physical mailings resulting from misuse of personal information (Garey).
The magistrate judge contrasted those scenarios with plaintiffs’ allegations:
- Plaintiffs framed their harm as the disclosure of their viewing history to Meta and the invasion of their statutory privacy right.
- They expressly conceded that they did not allege any resulting targeted advertising or other outreach directed to them following the disclosure.
- There was no allegation of any disruption of their home life, repeated contacts, harassment, or similar intrusion.
Under Bessent, Krakauer, and Garey, the Fourth Circuit requires more than an unlawful acquisition or disclosure of data; there must be subsequent conduct that intrudes upon the plaintiff’s seclusion (e.g., unwanted calls or mail). Because plaintiffs alleged no such intrusion, their harm was not closely analogous to intrusion upon seclusion.
The judge acknowledged that other circuits (D.C., Sixth, Ninth, Eleventh, Seventh) have treated VPPA disclosures of viewing history as sufficiently analogous to intrusion upon seclusion to confer standing. However, the magistrate concluded that binding Fourth Circuit authority (particularly Bessent) foreclosed that path in this case.
Angie Kieliszewski, et al., v. Relias, LLC, No. 5:25-CV-00043-M-RN, 2026 WL 262766 (E.D.N.C. Jan. 30, 2026).
