Facebook sued by Australian information commissioner above Cambridge Analytica scandal

Facebook has been sued by the Australian data commissioner above the collection and make use of more than 300,000 Australian users’ data.

The world’s biggest social media platform is being dragged into court over the Cambridge Analytica scandal that keeps haunting Facebook nearly four years after the elections that eventually dragged it into the spotlight.

The lawsuit could potentially cost Facebook a huge selection of billions of dollars, but it’s unlikely to end up paying that many and may even settle out of court without admitting to doing anything wrong like Google did to solve a tax dispute last year.

For the uninitiated, Cambridge Analytica was a political consultancy organization that collected the non-public data of tens of an incredible number of Facebook users and used that data to create hyperspecific targeted promotional initiatives with the aim of swaying elections.

The consultancy firm’s role in the 2016 US Presidential election and the Leave campaign during the 2016 Brexit vote has been the foundation of much scrutiny recently.

It eventually resulted in Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg needing to testify before the US Congress.

Nowadays it’s forced another lawsuit in Australia.

The Australian information commissioner Angelene Falk said users were powerless to avoid their data staying collected and had no idea how it could be used.

“We consider the look of the Facebook program meant that users were not able to exercise reasonable decision and control about how precisely their private information was disclosed,” Ms Falk said in a statement on Monday.

“Facebook’s default settings facilitated the disclosure of private information, including sensitive details, at the trouble of privacy.

“We say these actions kept the non-public data of around 311,127 Australian Facebook users subjected to be sold and applied for purposes incorporating political profiling, well outside users’ expectations.”

Much of the data was collected through “personality quizzes” and other gimmicks you might have been tagged in by the extra annoying members of friends and family list.

In this case, the Facebook app THAT IS Your Digital Your life was the main element offender.

But it didn’t simply take the info of the people who were wasting their time on the app.

The iphone app permissions also gave Cambridge Analytica the ability to proceed through public profiles, potentially collecting info on the friends as well.

That’s how most of the data was collected, in line with the claim lodged in Government Court on Monday.

The claim alleges Facebook breached Australian privacy laws when it disclosed users’ data to the THAT IS Your Digital Life app between March 2014 and could 2015.

The commissioner also alleges Facebook didn't take reasonable techniques during this period to protect its users’ private information from unauthorised disclosure.

She called the alleged breaches systemic failures to comply with Australian privacy laws by one of the world’s most significant technology companies.

The commissioner said all entities that operate in Australia have legal obligations to be “transparent and accountable in the manner they handle personal information”.

During the alleged data collection, the penalty for each and every serious and/or repeated interference with privacy was $1.7 million.

Multiply that by 311,127 Australians and you get yourself a potential bill of more than half a trillion dollars.

In america, where tens of millions more citizens had their data collected and weaponised against them, Facebook settled with the Federal Trade Commission for about $US5 billion ($A7.6 billion), so it would be surprising to state minimal if Facebook had to fork out any more than that in Australia, aside from more than $500 billion.

The social media platform is publicly outlined on the NASDAQ and closed Monday with a market capitalisation of $US483.15 billion ($A733.82 billion).

The lawsuit against Facebook employs the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced in October it might be suing Google for allegedly misleading users over how their location data was collected and used.

Both Facebook and Google featured heavily in the ACCC’s digital platforms inquiry last year.

A good Facebook spokesperson said the business had “actively engaged” with the investigation by any office of Australian Info Commissioner “in the last two years”.

“We’ve made major alterations to your platforms in discussion with international regulators to restrict the information available to iphone app developers, implement fresh governance protocols and build industry-leading controls to help people protect and manage their data,” the spokesperson said, however they were not able to comment further offered the case is currently before the court.