German users to get cash for data breach in 2018-2019

The German court made such a landmark decision Facebook users whose personal data was lawfully accessed between 2018 and 2019 are entitled to compensation, regardless of whether they can prove financial loss.

Meta failed to defend data breach case against German court

Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on Monday, November 18 that private individuals who lose control of their data due to unauthorized access have the right to claim damages.

As a result, the ruling will allow thousands of German Facebook users to claim damages from the platform for failing to protect their data following the social network’s massive security breach. Bloomberg reports

The previous Facebook data leak was massive

The second data breach, which occurred between 2018 and 2019, was due to third parties guessing phone numbers to access Facebook user accounts.

Facebook’s Friend Finder, which allowed users to find and contact people with matching phone numbers, was reportedly affected by the hack. Thus, the unauthorized access exposed a lot of sensitive personal information and raised concerns about the platform’s security measures.

An estimated six million Facebook users in Germany were affected by the hack, sparking widespread outrage over privacy and the company’s failure to protect user data.

As a result, various plaintiffs have filed lawsuits seeking damages against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, pursuant to Reuters.

Court decision on compensation

Historically, the lower court has dismissed such claims for damages, and a recent BGH decision was needed to reorient this previous dismissal practice by stating that specific financial loss need not be proven in order to be compensated by the user.

It is enough to simply lose control over personal data, so a violation of the privacy principle can easily lead to serious consequences for users.

In the case of a claimant seeking damages of €1,000 (US$1,056), the Supreme Court noted that a compensation amount of at least €100 would have been sufficient since no specific financial loss had been proven.

Meta sharply criticized the court decisions. The spokesperson noted that the BGH’s decision contradicts case law recently adopted by the European Court of Justice, which is Europe’s highest court. Despite this, the tech giant is now considering paying back victims whose data was leaked in the breach.

The court also ordered the lower court to re-evaluate the transparency and readability of Facebook’s terms of use. This will determine whether users have applied their informed consent to the use of their Facebook data, which could further complicate matters for Meta.

Facebook has been closely monitored by a German court in recent years. In 2016, it fined the social media app $109,000 for failing to overcome problems of intellectual property.

A little earlier this month, South Korea fined Meta $15.67 million after it became known that the company was collecting and receiving user data without permission.

To make matters worse, Meta only had a vague set of policies regarding the collection of user data. This added fuel to the fire, prompting Korea to press charges against the company.