Four years after the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal was first revealed, its aftermath continues to have an impact. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that accused the social media platform of allowing Cambridge Analytica and other third parties to access users’ private information without their consent. This settlement, which is the largest ever in a US data privacy class action and the most Meta has ever paid to resolve a class-action lawsuit, resolves user claims that Facebook violated federal and state laws by allowing its preferred vendors and partners to harvest personal data without consent.
As part of the settlement, Meta has not admitted to any wrongdoing, but the settlement is still subject to approval by a federal judge. In a statement, Meta stated that over the last three years it has “revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program” and that the settlement was “in the best interest of our community and shareholders.”
Cambridge Analytica, which is now defunct, was hired by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaigns and accessed the personal data of up to 87 million people through an app called “thisisyourdigitallife.” This data was then used to target individuals with personalized messages. The scandal was exposed by The New York Times and The Guardian in 2018 thanks to whistleblower Christopher Wylie. In 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a $5 billion fine as a result of a Federal Trade Commission investigation and $100 million to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission claims. It also paid £500,000 (about $644,000) in fines to the UK, a small amount compared to what it would have had to pay if the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) had been in place at the time of the scandal.
Facebook has not yet fully resolved the issues related to Cambridge Analytica. The company is currently involved in a lawsuit with the Washington DC attorney general and several state attorneys general.
