Facebook faces compo claim from 300,000 Australian privacy victims

Facebook faces a huge compensation bill if a complaint succeeds on behalf of Australians whose private data was harvested.

Facebook faces a compensation bill that could run into hundreds of millions of dollars if a complaint succeeds on behalf of Australian users whose private information was harvested by notorious political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Litigation funder IMF Bentham said it and law firm Johnson Winter & Slattery lodged a complaint with the Office of the Australian Information Commission on behalf of more than 300,000 Australians whose details were obtained by Cambridge Analytica through an allegedly dodgy Facebook quiz. The breach allegedly took place in 2013, when the quiz, “This is my Digital Life”, harvested the personal information of users and their friends — up to 87 million people.

It is alleged the personal details of about 50 million people, including more than 300,000 Australians, were then made available to Cambridge Analytica, which is currently at the centre of a political storm in Britain over its role working for the “leave” campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Cambridge Analytica allegedly used the data, which included political views, religious beliefs and “likes”, to build a tool that predicted personalities and for targeted advertising campaigns.

IMF Bentham said it appeared Facebook learned of the breach in late 2015, but failed to tell users about it until this year.

There is no cap on the compensation the OAIC can order for privacy breaches, but IMF Bentham investment manager Nathan Landis said most awards ranged between $1000 and $10,000. This implies a potential compensation bill of between $300 million and $3 billion.

IMF has left open the prospect of a class action in the courts should the OAIC decide not to order any compensation. Mr Landis said it would be up to the commissioner to determine the seriousness of the breach, based on the personal information disclosed and the number of people affected.

“On the second measure it’s quite a significant breach — more than 300,000 just in Australia,” he said. It was not entirely clear what and how much information Cambridge Analytica had obtained but it included “things like name, location, date of birth” and, reportedly, political affiliation.

“These are all things that the Privacy Act regards as sensitive information so in that regard it falls into the category of things that the act considers to be of greater importance,” Mr Landis said. He said the complaint automatically covered every Australian hit by the breach, but he urged victims to sign up to the action to help IMF find out exactly what information was exposed.

Cambridge Analytica was founded in 2013 by right-wing US publisher Stephen Bannon, who later served as an adviser to US President Donald Trump. In 2016 it worked on the winning side in two campaigns: Mr Trump’s bid for the presidency and the “leave” push in the Brexit referendum.

The company closed in May after Facebook admitted to the scale of its allegedly illicit data harvesting and Cambridge Analytica’s chief executive was caught on camera claiming it used bribery and prostitutes to help clients win elections around the world.

A Facebook spokeswoman did not answer The Australian’s questions about the complaint but said: “We are fully co-operating with the investigation currently under way by the Australian Privacy Commissioner and will review any additional evidence that is made available when the UK Office of the Information Commissioner releases their report.”

Wall Street Journal P25