Facebook sued for ‘losing control’ of personal data

Facebook is being sued in a mass legal action for “losing control” of the data of about one million people in the UK.

The lawsuit, filed in the High Court, claims that Facebook’s privacy settings allowed an app called This Is Your Digital Life to gather not only users’ information, but also details about their friends.

This Is Your Digital Life was a personality quiz created by US data scientist Aleksandr Kogan. It allegedly transferred information on 87 million people worldwide – one million of whom were in the UK – from Facebook to British political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica.

The lawsuit alleges that the app had access to users’ information between November 2013 and May 2015, without them or their friends knowing. It claims the app gathered information including name, gender, location, tagged photos and pages liked.

Journalist and writer Peter Jukes has brought the case on behalf of himself and other affected users in England and Wales. He’s being represented by law firm Hausfeld, which hasn’t revealed the amount users might win in compensation if the case is successful.

It’s using Civil Procedure Rules, which allows a claimant to bring a case on behalf of a class of people with the same interest. Everyone who shares the interest is included in the case unless they choose to opt out.

Mr Jukes said his chief purpose is to ensure that nothing similar happens again.

“It is only right that we, as consumers, hold Facebook to account for failing to comply with the law and for putting our personal data at risk, and to ensure that this is not allowed to happen again,” he said.

Facebook said in a statement that an investigation in 2018 by the Information Commissioner’s Office had “found no evidence that any UK or EU users’ data was transferred by Dr (Aleksandr) Kogan to Cambridge Analytica”.