Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has agreed to pay $725 million to end the lawsuit launched against it in 2018 in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The social network is accused of letting third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, have access to users’ private data.
“The 725 million offered by the agreement is the highest amount ever reached in a class action lawsuit over private data and ever paid by Facebook to end” to such lawsuits, defense attorneys said in a court document filed with a San Francisco court, released on the evening of December 22.
Facebook has admitted no infringement under the terms of this agreement which has yet to be approved by a judge in this court. “We sought an agreement because it was in our interests and those of the stakeholders. Over the past three years, we have completely overhauled our approach to privacy and put in place a program to improve its protection.said Dina El Kassaby Luce, spokeswoman for Meta.
Widely shared user personal data
The conclusion of a preliminary agreement was announced last August, without the amount or the terms of this agreement being revealed at the time. It came as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and chief executive Sheryl Sandberg, who announced her resignation in June after 14 years with the company, were due to testify in court in September in connection with the scandal.
In a procedure initiated in 2018, Facebook users accused the social network of having violated privacy rules by sharing their data with third parties, including the firm Cambridge Analytica, linked to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. in 2016.
Cambridge Analytica, which has since closed, had collected and used, without their consent, the personal data of 87 million Facebook users, to which the platform had given it access. This information would have been used to develop software used to guide the vote of American voters in favor of Donald Trump.
In July 2019, federal authorities fined Facebook $5 billion for “misleading” its users and imposed independent oversight of its handling of personal data.
Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook has removed access to its data from thousands of applications suspected of abusing it, restricted the amount of information accessible to developers in general and made it easier for users to calibration of personal data sharing restrictions.