Australia’s information commissioner is suing Facebook over allegedly breaching the privacy of over 300,000 Australians caught up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
In a case lodged in the federal court on Monday, the Australian information commissioner Angelene Falk has alleged Facebook committed serious and repeated interferences with privacy in contravention of Australian privacy law because data collected by the This is Your Digital Life app was used by Cambridge Analytica for political profiling, which was not what it was collected for.
At the time, Facebook said 311,127 Australians between March 2014 and May 2015 shared data with the app, accounting for 0.4% of users affected by the breach.
“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,” Falk said.
“Facebook’s default settings facilitated the disclosure of personal information, including sensitive information, at the expense of privacy.”
Guardian Australia has sought comment from Facebook.
More to come.
Gloss