US Jury Finds Meta Liable in Cambridge Analytica Privacy Lawsuit

News Desk
WASHINGTON: A US jury in New Mexico has found Facebook-owner Meta legally liable for deceiving users regarding their privacy protections, delivering a significant legal blow in a high-profile case linked to the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The litigation stems from revelations that the political consulting firm improperly harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users for targeted political advertising. The breach largely occurred through a personality quiz app known as “thisisyourdigitallife,” which initially accessed 270,000 users before expanding to sweep up roughly 87 million accounts worldwide during the 2016 US presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum.
Court proceedings and prior investigations revealed that tech giant Facebook became aware that Cambridge Analytica had purchased the harvested data as early as December 2015.
However, the company deliberately withheld disclosure until April 2018, when a whistleblower finally stepped forward, triggering a massive international political and regulatory storm over data security.
Legal analysts anticipate this verdict will pave the way for heightened scrutiny, stricter regulatory compliance, and potential additional financial liabilities for major technology platforms handling vast troves of consumer data globally.