Meta Platforms has settled a legal matter with Australia's privacy regulator for A$50 million (approximately $31.85 million). This concludes protracted litigation stemming from the Cambridge Analytica incident involving Facebook's parent company.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner had claimed that the personal data of certain users was improperly shared with Facebook's personality quiz application, This is Your Digital Life, as part of the larger controversy.
These violations were initially reported by the Guardian in early 2018, leading to fines imposed on Facebook by regulatory bodies in both the United States and the United Kingdom in 2019.
Since 2020, Australia's privacy regulator has been engaged in legal disputes with Meta. A statement from 2020 indicated that the personal information of 311,127 Australian Facebook users was "exposed to the risk of being disclosed" to the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica for profiling purposes.
In March 2023, the high court declined to hear an appeal, a decision viewed as a victory for the regulator, allowing it to proceed with its case.
In June 2023, the federal court mandated that Meta and the privacy commissioner enter mediation.
"Today's settlement marks the largest payment ever made to address individual privacy concerns in Australia," stated Australian Information Commissioner Elizabeth Tydd.
Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm, was notorious for retaining personal data from millions of Facebook users without their consent, primarily utilizing this information for political advertising, including support for Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign in the UK.
A spokesperson for Meta informed Reuters that the company settled the lawsuit in Australia without admitting any wrongdoing, thereby concluding the allegations concerning its previous practices.