Canada: Issued judgement by Federal Court dismissing case against Facebook for alleged privacy violations

On 13 April 2023, the Federal Court of Canada issued its judgment dismissing the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's (OPC) claim alleging that Facebook breached the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) through its practices of sharing Facebook users' personal information with third-party applications hosted on the Facebook platform. The OPC's allegations followed an investigation of a PIPEDA complaint, claiming that "thisisyourdigitallife", a third-party application, had obtained data through Facebook and subsequently disclosed it to "Cambridge Analytica", a British research firm. In particular, the Court found that the OPC did not provide sufficient evidence that Facebook failed to obtain meaningful consent when sharing information with third-party applications. Furthermore, the Court found that the OPC was unable to prove that Facebook did not adequately safeguard user information by relying on good faith and honest execution of its contractual agreements with third-party app developers.