Meta agrees to USD 725 million settlement for Cambridge Analytica scandal

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has just agreed to a USD $725PHP 42,547INR 61,444EUR 690CNY 5,277 million settlement with political analysis firm Cambridge Analytica, as a result of the data scandal it was involved in back in 2018.

The settlement was made known to the public in a US court filing released on December 22. While Meta has agreed to the payment, NPR reported that Meta did not itself “admit wrongdoing” and that it had revamped its privacy policies following the incident.

In 2018, Facebook admitted that it had leaked the user data of at least 87 million Facebook users to the firm, sparking comprehensive investigations and public outrage among Facebook users.

Cambridge Analytica was formerly accused of buying millions of Americans’ data to profile American voters and tailor campaigns using the said data.

The Philippines’ very own National Privacy Commission launched its own investigation against Facebook following the leak, especially with the estimated 67 million active Filipino Facebook users at the time.