Facebook, Cambridge Analytica Hit with Class Action Case in Alabama

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The fallout from the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal continues, as the companies now face a proposed class action lawsuit in Alabama over the defendants’ alleged “utter disregard for privacy and protection” of consumers’ personal information. From the complaint:

“To be clear, this Personal Information was supposed to be protected, and used for only expressly disclosed and limited purposes. However, [the defendants] exceeded whatever limited authorization they had been granted by allowing the improper collection and use of the Personal Information. Facebook knew this improper data collection was occurring and how the Personal Information would eventually be used. However, Facebook failed to stop it, or purposely avoided monitoring the eventual uses of the Personal Information in order to profess ignorance at a later date.”

The complaint slams the defendants’ conduct as an “unprecedented attack on democracy” and details how Facebook users’ personal information was surreptitiously used to influence elections nationwide in 2016. According to the case, Cambridge Analytica weaponized billions of users’ data as part of “highly-targeted and inflammatory” ad campaigns, with Facebook doing little to properly oversee how users’ information was being used.

The lawsuit argues the defendants’ conduct violates the federal Stored Communications Act, as well as the Alabama’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act.