Australia Hits Facebook With US$529 Billion Lawsuit

Australia has filed a lawsuit against social media giant Facebook accusing the company violating the country’s privacy policy and FB could pay as much as $529 billion.

Australia accuses the social media company of violating the privacy of as many as 311 127 Australians by sharing their information with the This is Your Digital Life app between 2014 and 2015. Unfortunately, the owners of the app subsequently sold the data to Cambridge Analytica and the data was used for political profiling.

Authorities from the Oceanian country claim Facebook “failed to take reasonable steps to protect those individuals’ personal information from unauthorised disclosure” which then led further disclosure for purposes other than which it had been initially gathered.

We consider the design of the Facebook platform meant that users were unable to exercise reasonable choice and control about how their personal information was disclosed.

Facebook’s default settings facilitated the disclosure of personal information, including sensitive information, at the expense of privacy.

Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk

The lawsuit also claims that the majority of people affected by the privacy breach didn’t even install the application with their data being exposed after their friends downloaded Facebook.

So how does this result in a heavy $529 billion fine? Well, each violation carries a $1.7 million penalty and when multiplied by 311 127 cases, we get to $529 billion.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner suggests that there is a possibility all the cases could be rolled into one and carry a $1.7 million fine.