TORONTO -- Australia’s Information Commissioner is suing Facebook Inc., alleging that the web giant exposed the data of more than 300,000 Australians to be sold and misused for political profiling.
In a press release, the Commissioner said that Australian Facebook users had disclosed personal information to an app called “This is Your Digital Life” between March 2014 and May 2015, which was then used for purposes other than what users had agreed to, in breach of privacy laws.
“The information was exposed to the risk of being disclosed to Cambridge Analytica and used for political profiling purposes, and to other third parties,” the press release stated.
The press release said that the design of Facebook’s website and the default settings for private information were set up so that users’ sensitive information was not properly protected.
“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,” said Angelene Falk, Australian Information Commissioner and Privacy Commissioner, in the press release.
Facebook has been facing the consequences of a privacy scandal since March of 2018, when it was first reported that Cambridge Analytica had lifted the profiles of tens of millions of users without their permission, to be used in attempts to sway elections and target users with misinformation. The scandal has been tied to the 2016 U.S. election that saw Donald Trump win the presidency.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner is an agency that upholds privacy and information rights.
If the company is found guilty, the court could serve them with a fine of up to AUD$1,700,000 “for each serious and/or repeated interference with privacy,” according to the statement.
