Australia sues Facebook, alleges breach of user data

By Byron Kaye

 

FILE PHOTO: A Facebook logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Australian privacy regulator filed a lawsuit against Facebook Inc (FB.O), accusing the social media giant of sharing the personal details of more than 300,000 people with political consultant Cambridge Analytica without their knowledge.

 

In the Federal Court lawsuit, the Australian Information Commissioner accused Facebook of breaching privacy law by disclosing 311,127 users’ information for political profiling via a survey product, ‘This Is Your Digital Life’, on its website.

 

“The design of the Facebook platform meant that users were unable to exercise reasonable choice and control about how their personal information was disclosed,” Information Commissioner Angelene Falk said in a statement.

 

The suit sought unspecified damages, adding that each breach of privacy law could draw a maximum penalty of A$1.7 million ($1.1 million). The fine would amount to A$529 billion if the court awarded the maximum for each of the 311,127 instances.

 

A Facebook spokeswoman said the company had engaged “actively” with the Office of the Information Commissioner over the past two years as part of the investigation.

 

“We’ve made major changes to our platforms, in consultation with international regulators, to restrict the information available to app developers, implement new governance protocols and build industry-leading controls to help people protect and manage their data,” she said in a statement.

 

“We’re unable to comment further as this is now before the Federal Court.”

 

PERSONALITY QUIZ

 

Last July, Facebook was fined a record $5 billion by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission after a probe triggered by the same user personality quiz from 2014 to 2015.

 

In all, Facebook was accused of inappropriately sharing information belonging to 87 million users globally with the survey tool of now-defunct British firm Cambridge Analytica. The consultancy’s clients included U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

 

In the months after Trump’s election, Cambridge Analytica registered a business in Australia but never went to work for an Australian political party.

 

In the Australian lawsuit, the Information Commissioner said Facebook did not know the exact nature of the data it shared with Cambridge Analytica’s ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ program, but that it failed to take reasonable steps to protect users’ personal information.

 

“As a result, the Affected Australian Individuals’ personal information was exposed to the risk of disclosure, monetisation and use for political profiling purposes,” the court filing said.

 

“These breaches amounted to serious and/or repeated interferences with the privacy of the Australian Affected Individuals,” it added.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-03-09

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Yes dirty FB

 but who 'smart' would willingly answer a faceless 'survey' 

 - may as well submitted their Passwords wilst they were at it...

facebook is for narcissists that love to put their fake life for everybody to see anyway

 

in the beginning of facebook, I thought it would be a great way to RATE companies like yelp ( ? ) does, to everybody, but that is not the case, only to your online "friends"

Edited March 10, 20206 yr by justin case

Time that vile, IMO, platform is destroyed. If it takes winning billions against them in court so be it.

It started as a "good idea" and morphed into an evil method of stealing everyone's ( that uses it ) information.

I don't use it.

On 3/10/2020 at 3:48 PM, tifino said:

 but who 'smart' would willingly answer a faceless 'survey' 

 - may as well submitted their Passwords wilst they were at it...

You think they don't already know what all the passwords are?