Facebook owner Meta has agreed to pay $725m (£600m) to settle legal action over a data breach linked to political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.
The long-running dispute accused the social media giant of giving third parties, including the British company, access to Facebook users’ personal information.
The proposed sum is the largest in a US privacy class action, according to attorneys.
Meta, which admitted no wrongdoing, said it had “revised” its approach to privacy over the past three years.
In a statement, the company said the settlement was “in the best interests of our community and our shareholders.”
“We look forward to continuing to build services people love and trust, with privacy at the forefront.”
The proposed settlement, announced in a court filing late Thursday, is subject to approval by a federal judge in San Francisco.
“This historic settlement will bring significant relief to the class in this complex and novel privacy case,” lead counsel for the plaintiffs, Derek Loeser and Lesley Weaver, said in a statement.
- Facebook scandal ‘affected 87 million users’
- Facebook agrees to pay Cambridge Analytica fine
- Facebook sues for “loss of control” over user data
The complaint was filed on behalf of a large proposed group of Facebook users whose personal information was shared with third parties on the social network without their consent.
The class size is “in the range of 250 to 280 million” people, according to the ruling document, and represents all Facebook users in the US during the “class period,” which runs from May 24, 2007 to December 22, 2022.
It is not clear how the plaintiffs would claim their part in the settlement.
Another settlement hearing is scheduled for March 2, 2023.
The collection of personal data from Facebook users by third-party apps was at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal uncovered in 2018.
The now-defunct consulting firm worked on Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign and used personal data from millions of US Facebook accounts for voter profiling and targeting purposes.
The company obtained this information, without users’ consent, from a researcher who had been allowed by Facebook to host an app on the platform that collected data from millions of its users.
Facebook assumes that the data of up to 87 million people was misused with political advice.
The scandal sparked government investigations into Facebook’s privacy practices, leading to lawsuits and a high-profile hearing in the US Congress questioning Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay $5 billion to settle a Federal Trade Commission investigation into its privacy practices.
The tech giant also paid $100 million to settle SEC claims that it misled investors about the misuse of user data.
The Attorneys General’s investigation continues and the company is challenging a lawsuit brought by the Washington DC Attorney General.
Add Comment