Because You Often Track Users, Meta Must Pay IDR 1.2 Trillion

Facebook is accused of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. (photo: doc. Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Meta has long been facing a lawsuit over allegations that its company frequently tracks its users, even after they log out of its social media account, Facebook. Now Meta settles it by agreeing to pay 90 million US dollars.

The lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2012, is currently awaiting final approval from the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Plaintiffs who are affected by the improper tracking of Facebook data will receive a share of 90 million US dollars or equivalent to Rp. 1.2 trillion.

In addition, Meta will also be asked to delete all data collected in a wrong way from that user.

"Reaching a settlement in this case, which is more than a decade old, is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders and we are pleased to address this issue," said Meta spokesman Drew Pusateri.

In fact, the lawsuit was dropped in June 2017 after a federal judge said that the plaintiffs failed to show evidence they were stalked by Meta and suffered financial losses.

However, a federal appeals court revived the case in 2020, ruling that Facebook's data collection did create economic harm and that this alleged data collection required user consent as defined under the Wiretapping Act.

Facebook appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, but declined to take the case last year.

If this settlement is approved, it will be one of the largest data privacy settlements in US history. But Facebook has faced larger penalties in the past for alleged data privacy breaches.

Last February, a federal judge approved a $650 million Facebook privacy class action settlement that affected more than 1.6 million users. The lawsuit accuses Facebook of violating the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act over its use of the facial recognition platform in photo tagging.