What Is Limited Data Use on Meta?

Limited data use (LDU) is a data processing option Meta offers to advertisers. You send Meta a flag along with data from your advertising tools. For flagged people in states where LDU is available, Meta says it processes their personal information as a service provider or processor and restricts how it uses that data. Meta says the option better supports your compliance efforts with various US state privacy regulations. Everything here is as checked on 2 Oct 2026.

Who decides when to send the flag?

You do. Meta says it is up to you, with the advice of your legal counsel, whether and when to send the flag. Meta gives two examples of when a business may send it: when a customer has opted out of the sharing or selling of their data, and when you receive an opt-out signal from people in California or Colorado who use the Global Privacy Control browser extension.

Meta began offering the flag in 2020, after the California Consumer Privacy Act took effect, and has since added more states. What you can do: agree with your adviser which signals trigger the flag on your site, and write that rule down before anyone builds it.

Which states and tools does Meta list?

Meta says availability is limited to events from the states in its table. As checked on 2 Oct 2026, the table reads like this.

State	Meta business tools	Audience Network SDK	Customer list custom audience
California	Yes	Yes	Yes
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas	Yes	Yes	No

“Meta business tools” here means the App Events API, the Meta Pixel, app events via the Facebook SDK, the Offline Conversions API and the Conversions API. If your customers live in a state that is not in the table, the flag is not listed for them. Check the linked page for the current table.

What does the flag change in your ads?

Meta says that when LDU is enabled you may notice an impact on campaign performance and effectiveness, and that retargeting and measurement capabilities will be limited.

Two audience rules matter. Custom audiences built from business-tools data and used only for exclusion targeting do not need the flag for Meta to act as a processor. For customer list custom audiences, only people in California can currently be flagged, and Meta says this might affect your audience size. What you can do: compare reporting for flagged and unflagged traffic before you decide how widely to apply the flag.

How do you send the flag?

Meta says you send it through an array called data processing options, and points to its developer documentation for each product. For a customer list you can also upload a CSV or TXT file with extra columns for data processing options. Meta determines whether someone lives in an LDU state unless you add state-specific location parameters when you send the flag.

What you can do: ask whoever built your tags or server events which events carry the array, then test one.

What does a state privacy law say about opt-outs?

The California Attorney General’s page, updated on 28 August 2026, says California residents can opt out of the sale or sharing of their personal information, including through the Global Privacy Control. It describes “sharing” as sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising, meaning targeting ads using personal information from a person’s activity across many websites. It says a business must respond to an opt-out as soon as feasible, within a maximum of 15 business days.

This is what the page says, not legal advice. Read the linked page and ask a qualified adviser what applies to your business. Meta’s business tools requirements page says you are ultimately responsible for the data you share with Meta.

FAQ

Do I have to use the limited data use flag?

Meta’s page says it is up to you, with the advice of your legal counsel, whether and when to send the flag. Meta describes it as a feature that supports your compliance efforts. What a law requires of your business is a question for the law’s own page and a qualified adviser.

Which Meta products offer the flag?

Meta lists the App Events API, Meta Pixel, app events via the Facebook SDK, Offline Conversions API, Conversions API, Audience Network SDK and customer list custom audiences. Availability depends on the state of the person whose data you send, as shown in Meta’s table.

Can I flag people outside California in a customer list?

Not according to Meta’s page as checked on 2 Oct 2026. For customer list custom audiences, Meta says only people in California can currently be flagged for limited data use, and flagging them might affect your audience size.