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Social media giant Facebook is being taken to Federal Court over alleged privacy breaches relating to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Key points:
- The information commissioner alleges Facebook committed "serious and/or repeated interferences" with privacy
- The allegations relate to an app that shared data with notorious data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica
- Facebook has already been fined in the UK, among other countries, over the data misuse scandal
The charges concern the personality quiz application This is Your Digital Life, which shared data with the now-notorious British data analysis firm.
In 2018, Cambridge Analytica made global headlines after its leaders claimed to use information harvested on Facebook to target people with political advertising on social media and manipulate elections.
The Australian Information Commissioner alleges Facebook disclosed the personal information of Australians unlawfully when it shared their data with the app in 2014 and 2015.
"We claim these actions left the personal data of around 311,127 Australian Facebook users exposed to be sold and used for purposes including political profiling, well outside users' expectations," Australian information commissioner Angelene Falk said in a statement.
The This is Your Digital Life app was able to collect not only the data of people who downloaded it, but also friends in their network.
Although around 53 Australians installed the app, according to the Commissioner, the data of more than 300,000 Australians could be harvested. More than 86 million Facebook users were affected globally.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) announced it was investigating Facebook over the scandal in April 2018.
Facebook failed 'to take reasonable steps to protect personal information'
The Commissioner also alleges that Facebook breached privacy laws when it did not take reasonable steps to protect its users' personal information from unauthorised disclosure.
"All entities operating in Australia must be transparent and accountable in the way they handle personal information, in accordance with their obligations under Australian privacy law," Commissioner Falk said.
"Facebook's default settings facilitated the disclosure of personal information, including sensitive information, at the expense of privacy."
In 2018, Facebook was fined 500,000 pounds ($998,000) by the UK's data protection watchdog over the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal.
It also paid $US5 billion ($7.64 billion) in the United States for "deceiving" users about their ability to keep personal information private, following an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.
According to the OAIC, the Federal Court can impose a fine of up to $1,700,000 for each "serious and/or repeated interference" with privacy.
Facebook has been contacted for comment.
More to come.
Topics: government-and-politics, law-crime-and-justice, information-and-communication, internet-culture, science-and-technology, australia
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