The Australian information commissioner is taking Facebook to court alleging it breached the privacy of Australians, in relation to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The watchdog lodged proceedings in the Federal Court alleging that the personal information of more than 300,000 Australian Facebook users collected by the This is Your Digital Life app was exposed to Cambridge Analytica for political profiling - which is not what it was collected for.
“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,” says Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk.
“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.
“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.”
The watchdog will claim that Facebook committed serious and repeated interferences with privacy in contravention of Australian privacy law. The Federal Court can impose a penalty of up to $1.7 million for each offence.
“We’ve actively engaged with the OAIC over the past two years as part of their investigation,” a Facebook spokesperson says.
“We’ve made major changes to our platforms, in consultation with international regulators, to restrict the information available to app developers, implement new governance protocols and build industry-leading controls to help people protect and manage their data.”
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