Australia Allegedly Sues Facebook For User Data Breach—$349 billion penalty expected

A lawsuit was filed against the social media giant Facebook by an Australian privacy regulator. As per the details, the regulator accused Facebook of sharing the personal details of more than 300,000 people with the political consultant Cambridge Analytica without users’ knowledge.

The Information Commissioner of Australia, in the Federal Court lawsuit, accused the social media giant of breaching the privacy law by sharing the personal information of 311,127 Facebook users for political profiling via a survey product, ‘This Is Your Digital Life’, on its website.

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

The lawsuit against the social media giant sought unspecified damages, adding that each breach of the privacy law could draw a maximum penalty of A$1.7 million (1.1 million USD). It is worth mention here that if the court awarded the maximum for each of the 311,127 instances, the fine would amount to A$529 billion (349 billion USD).

On the other hand, a representative of the social media company in Australia was not immediately available for the official comment on the matter.