Meta to settle Cambridge Analytica case for US$725m
FACEBOOK owner Meta Platforms has agreed to pay US$725 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit accusing the social media giant of allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access users’ personal information.
The proposed settlement was disclosed in a court filing late on Thursday (Dec 22). It would resolve a long-running lawsuit prompted by revelations in 2018 that Facebook had allowed the British political consulting firm to access as many as 87 million users’ data.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the proposed settlement the largest to ever be achieved in a US data privacy class action, and the most that Meta has ever paid to resolve a class-action lawsuit.
“This historic settlement will provide meaningful relief to the class in this complex and novel privacy case,” said Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver, who are the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs.
Meta did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which is subject to the approval of a federal judge in San Francisco, California. The company said that settling was “in the best interest of (its) community and shareholders”.
“Over the last three years, we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy programme,” it added.
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The now-defunct Cambridge Analytica gained access to Facebook users’ personal information for the purposes of voter profiling and targeting while working for Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign in 2016. The company obtained that information without users’ consent from a researcher who had been allowed by Facebook to deploy an app that harvested data from millions of users.
The ensuing scandal fuelled government investigations into the social media platform’s privacy practices, as well as lawsuits and a high-profile US congressional hearing, where Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was grilled by lawmakers.
Thursday’s settlement would resolve claims by Facebook users that the company had violated various federal and state laws by letting app developers and business partners harvest their personal data without their consent on a widespread basis. Their lawyers alleged that Facebook had misled them into thinking they could keep control over personal data, when in fact it had let thousands of preferred outsiders gain access.
The company argued that its users had no legitimate privacy interest in information shared with friends on social media. US District Judge Vince Chhabria said this view was “so wrong”, and largely allowed the case to move forward in 2019.
In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay US$5 billion to resolve a Federal Trade Commission probe into its privacy practices. It also agreed to pay US$100 million to settle claims by the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it had misled investors about the misuse of users’ data.
Investigations by state attorneys-general are ongoing. The company is fighting a lawsuit by the attorney-general for Washington, DC. REUTERS
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