A court in Milan has given the green light to a collective lawsuit targeting Meta Platforms following a significant breach of Facebook user information that impacted hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
The ruling from the Italian court stems from a data harvesting incident that occurred over an 18-month period from January 2018 through September 2019. Meta publicly revealed the breach in 2021, acknowledging that approximately 533 million Facebook accounts across the globe were compromised.
The CTCU consumer advocacy organization filed the legal action seeking damages for social media users whose personal information was stolen or who worried about losing control of their private data. The incident represents a violation of the European Union’s comprehensive data privacy laws known as the General Data Protection Regulation.
Legal experts estimate that roughly 35 million Italian Facebook users could be eligible for compensation as part of the data harvesting case.
A representative from Meta pushed back against Tuesday’s court decision, stating: “We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision, which is a procedural ruling only and makes no finding that Meta violated any law.” The company spokesperson continued: “We are confident this meritless action will ultimately be dismissed.”
