A US judge has ordered Meta to pay $25 billion in civil penalties for deceiving Facebook users about the privacy of their personal data, in a landmark ruling stemming from the Cambridge Analytica scandal that exposed the harvesting of personal information from millions of Americans for political campaigns.
New Mexico District Judge Francis Mathew issued the ruling on Wednesday, following a September jury verdict finding Facebook’s parent company responsible for nearly 44 million violations of the state’s consumer protection laws.
The judge concluded that Meta’s misconduct warranted a penalty exceeding $219 billion under state law, but reduced the amount to $25 billion, making it one of the largest financial penalties ever imposed on an American corporation.
“Facebook’s wrongdoing – over the course of years and systematically broadcast to the public – goes to the heart of Facebook’s core business practices,” Mathew wrote in his order.
The case arose from the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, when it emerged that the British political consulting firm had obtained personal information from as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent.
The information was collected through a third-party personality quiz application that exploited Facebook’s system for accessing users’ friends’ data. Cambridge Analytica used the information to develop psychological profiles of voters and deliver targeted political advertising, including during the 2016 US presidential election.
The company was established in 2013 as the American political-data arm of the British SCL Group, a private contractor specializing in behavioral influence, psychological profiling and strategic communications. SCL also marketed influence and research services to defense clients, including the British Ministry of Defence.
The scandal also exposed connections to Palantir Technologies, a Silicon Valley data-analysis company with extensive contracts involving US intelligence agencies and the Pentagon. A 2018 New York Times investigation revealed that at least one Palantir employee had advised Cambridge Analytica’s researchers during the firm’s 2014 efforts to harvest Facebook information.
Palantir denied having a formal business relationship with Cambridge Analytica, maintaining that the employee had acted in a personal capacity.
Cambridge Analytica collapsed in 2018 amid worldwide scrutiny of its operations, while Facebook faced regulatory investigations, lawsuits and billions of dollars in penalties.
Attorney General Raul Torrez hailed Wednesday’s judgment as a warning to Silicon Valley that even the largest technology companies could be held accountable for violating consumer protection laws.
Meta has denied misleading users and plans to appeal the ruling, arguing that the unprecedented penalty is unconstitutional. Responding to the jury’s verdict last month, the company also invoked freedom of speech, insisting that Facebook is a forum for free expression.