Facebook / Meta User Data Privacy (Cambridge Analytica) Settlement

The Cambridge Analytica scandal erupted in 2018 when it was revealed that the British political consulting firm had harvested the personal data of up to 87 million Facebook users without their consent, using that data to build psychological profiles for targeted political advertising — most notably during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The disclosure triggered a global firestorm and a class action lawsuit consolidating thousands of claims against Facebook. Plaintiffs alleged that Facebook violated its own privacy policies and user agreements by allowing third-party app developers and their partners to access vast amounts of user data, including data from users who had never directly interacted with those apps.

After years of hard-fought litigation, Meta agreed in December 2022 to a $725 million settlement — the largest ever secured in a data privacy class action lawsuit in the United States. The settlement required no admission of wrongdoing from Meta but represented a watershed moment for consumer data privacy rights. The case fueled ongoing legislative efforts around data privacy reform in the U.S. and reinforced the legal exposure that technology companies face when they treat user data as a commodity. Eligible class members included U.S.-based Facebook users active on the platform between May 2007 and December 2022.