Meta Lied About Data Privacy, Faces Up to $10.5 Billion in Penalties

NEW MEXICO, Sept 25: A jury in New Mexico found Meta liable on Friday for unfair or deceptive trade practices after concluding that the company misled Facebook users about their control over personal data, US media reported.

The jury determined that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, committed 2.1 million statutory violations under New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act. The figure corresponds to the state’s estimated population and followed evidence that users were misled about the privacy protections surrounding their personal information.

The presiding judge will determine the financial penalties. State prosecutors are seeking the maximum statutory penalty of $5,000 per violation, which could potentially expose Meta to billions of dollars in additional liability.

“Facebook’s data breach didn’t just expose private information; it revealed a pattern of misrepresentation about how user data was collected, shared, and exploited,” New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez said when the trial began on Sept. 9.

The lawsuit was filed in 2021 following the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, alleging that the unauthorized harvesting of political data affected about 350,000 New Mexico residents without valid consent.

The Cambridge Analytica controversy centered on the use of personal data for targeted political advertising during the 2016 US presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum.

Meta has also recently reached an $18 billion multistate settlement resolving claims that its platforms intentionally encouraged addictive use among young people.