Meta settles $930 million lawsuit over Facebook personal data leak

The Largest Settlement in U.S. History for Data Breach Class Action
Meta Records Highest Settlement Amount Paid in Class Action Lawsuit

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta
Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Junran] Meta, the parent company sued over the leakage of Facebook users' personal information, has agreed to compensate the victims with $725 million (approximately 930 billion KRW).

According to Reuters on the 23rd (local time), the settlement amount for the class-action lawsuit related to the 2018 'Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal' was finalized at $725 million.

Meta and the plaintiff Facebook users reached an agreement last August and have been negotiating additional details over several months, recently submitting the final settlement document to the court.

The plaintiffs' legal team emphasized that this settlement represents the largest achievement in the history of class-action lawsuits over personal information leaks in the United States. They also stated that it is the highest amount Meta has paid in a class-action settlement.

The CA scandal involved the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica collecting personal information of 87 million Facebook users without their consent during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and using it for political advertisements.

When CA's illegal data collection surfaced, prosecutors across the United States sued Facebook. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which oversees consumer protection in the U.S., also launched an investigation.

Ultimately, Facebook agreed in 2019 to pay a $5 billion fine (approximately 6.4 trillion KRW) to the FTC and also settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by agreeing to pay a penalty of $100 million (approximately 128 billion KRW).

This settlement is the result of a class-action lawsuit filed by users claiming that Facebook violated federal and state laws by allowing app developers and partners to collect personal information. Facebook argued that it had no legal authority over the information users shared on Facebook, but the court did not accept this claim.

Meanwhile, Cambridge Analytica, which ran political advertisements based on Facebook users' personal information at the time, went out of business in 2018.