Meta has agreed to a $50 million payment program to settle a long-running proceeding in Australia related to misuse of information for political ad targeting, the country’s information watchdog OAIC announced Tuesday.
The settlement concerns the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, when data on millions of Facebook users was exfiltrated without their knowledge or consent by a developer on its platform. The OAIC sued Facebook in March 2020 — pursuing damages for the 300,000+ local users believed to have been caught up in the data heist.
A long legal process followed, but Meta has now agreed to an enforceable undertaking that ends civil penalty proceedings. Although, not for the first time vis-à-vis this matter, Meta is not admitting liability.
Under the settlement, the company has agreed to establish a payment program for eligible Facebook users who “may have suffered loss or damage as a result of interferences with their privacy”.
In a statement, information commissioner Elizabeth Tydd said the settlement is “the largest ever payment dedicated to addressing concerns about the privacy of individuals in Australia” — giving “potentially affected Australians an opportunity to seek redress” while ending a “lengthy court process”.
While Meta spokesman Matthew Pollard claimed the company had settled on a “no admissions basis, as it is in the best interest of our community and shareholders that we close this chapter on allegations that relate to past practices no longer relevant to how Meta’s products or systems work today”.
