Australia: Reached settlement agreement in OAIC case against Facebook regarding disclosure of user information to Cambridge Analytica

On 17 December 2024, the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) reached a settlement agreement of AUD 50 million with Meta Platforms, resolving civil penalty proceedings related to Cambridge Analytica. In 2010, Meta launched the Graph Application Programming Interface, enabling the third-party application "thisisyourdigitallife" to access user data, which was later transferred to Cambridge Analytica by the application's developer, violating Meta's terms. An investigation by OAIC initiated in April 2018 focused on the potential misuse of Australian users' data. In March 2020, civil penalty proceedings were initiated, alleging that Meta breached Australian privacy laws, affecting 53 Australian users directly and 311,074 indirectly. The settlement agreement applies to Facebook users in Australia who were impacted by the breach, specifically those who held a Facebook account between 2 November 2013 and 17 December 2015 and either installed the "thisisyourdigitallife" application or were friends with someone who did. The settlement payments will be split into two tiers, a base payment for general concern and a higher payment for those who can demonstrate specific loss or damage.