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Summary: A Maryland Facebook user is suing the site amidst the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
On Wednesday, a Maryland woman sued Facebook and Cambridge Analytica for violating her privacy along with that of almost 50 million other Facebook users.
According to Buzzfeed, Lauren Price filed her lawsuit this week because she was “frequently targeted with political ads while using Facebook” during the 2016 presidential election. Her lawsuit came after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had worked with Presidential Donald Trump’s campaign to provide users’ personal information without their knowledge or consent.
Cambridge Analytica is a voter profiling company that was hired by the Trump campaign. They allegedly collected data improperly from 50 million Facebook users, and in Price’s lawsuit, she said that Facebook knew of this but did nothing to stop it.
Cambridge Analytica allegedly collected the data under false pretenses. According to the lawsuit, the company is linked with academic, Aleksandr Kogan, who collected personal details through an app called MyDigitalLife. The app said that it was collecting data for academic purposes, but Cambridge used it for a profit and for a political purpose instead.
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Almost 300,000 people downloaded the app, and from there, it scraped the information from them and their friends.
Price filed her lawsuit in California, and she said that she is suing over the misuse of her personal information. She is being represented by attorney John Yanchunis, who told Buzzfeed that Facebook’s failure to protect the privacy of its users was “reprehensible.”
“The incident has violated the privacy of millions of people in every state,” the complaint stated. “The privacy and personal, sensitive information of 50 million people is now at high risk for identity theft and compromise, and will continue to be at risk as a direct result of the acts of Defendants.”
This week, news of Cambridge Analytica’s actions came out, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded on Wednesday that the company was working to stop privacy violations from third parties.
“This was a breach of trust between Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook,” Zuckerberg wrote. “But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it. We need to fix that.”
Facebook deputy general counsel, Paul Grewal, told Buzzfeed that Facebook was aware of Price’s lawsuit and was committed to protecting users’ privacy.
“We are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information. We will take whatever steps are required to see that this happens,” Grewal said.
Price’s lawsuit is seeking class-action status.
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