Australia: Information Commissioner filed amended statement of claim in proceedings against Meta over alleged improper disclosure of personal information to Cambridge Analytica

On 2 June 2023, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) filed an Amended Statement of Claim in the Civil Penalty Proceedings against Meta and Meta Platforms Ireland Limited, providing further particulars of the OAIC’s allegations concerning the Cambridge Analytica incident. The amended claim elaborated that Meta’s systems and practices raised concerns regarding the protection of personal information of Australian Facebook users, and that throughout the period during which the “This is Your Digital Life” application was available to Facebook users, approximately 53 Facebook users located in Australia installed the application. It was further alleged that the personal information of approximately 311'074 additional Australian Facebook users may have been requested by the “This is Your Digital Life” App as friends of the installing users, despite those individuals not having installed the app themselves. The OAIC alleged that this conduct amounted to serious or repeated interferences with privacy under section 13G of the Privacy Act, as Meta and Meta Platforms Ireland Limited had failed to ensure compliance with APPs 6.1 and 11.1.