Meta Agrees To Pay IDR 500 Billion To Australia To End Cambridge Analytica Scandal

Australian Information Commissioner Elizabeth Tydd (photo: x @OAICgov)

JAKARTA Meta Platforms, Facebook's parent company, has agreed to pay a fine of 50 million Australian dollars (around Rp500 billion) to settle a lawsuit related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to an announcement from Australia's privacy watchdog on Tuesday, December 17.

This settlement ended a long legal dispute that has been going on since 2020, in which the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) accused Facebook of leaking personal data of some of its users through the quiz application This is Your Digital Life. This application is part of a global scandal that emerged in 2018.

OAIC says that personal data belonging to 311,127 Facebook users in Australia is at risk of being shared with British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica and used for user profile mapping purposes. The data is allegedly used for political advertising purposes, including Donald Trump's campaign in the US and Brexit referendum in the UK.

The case has been in the spotlight since it was first revealed by The Guardian in 2018, which sparked similar fines in the United States and Britain in 2019. Meta and Australia's privacy watchdog have gone through various trials until finally in March 2023, the Australian high court rejected Meta's appeal. This decision allows OAIC to continue legal proceedings against the company.

The Largest Settlement on Privacy in Australia After going through mediation since June 2023, Australian Information Commissioner Elizabeth Tydd stated that this settlement is the largest payment ever made to address individual privacy concerns in Australia.

"This settlement is a significant step in protecting the privacy of Australians," said Tydd.

Meanwhile, a Meta spokesperson said that the settlement was done without acknowledgment, in an attempt to close the sheets on allegations of the company's practices in the past.

With the end of this case, Meta hopes to close the long round of controversy that has a significant impact on Facebook's reputation globally.