Atlas Consumer Law Files Federal Class Lawsuit Against Cambridge Analytica, Facebook & Mark Zuckerberg on Behalf of Plaintiffs

LOMBARD, Ill., March 27, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On March 22, 2018, Plaintiffs Victor James Comforte II and Brendan Michael Carr filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Cambridge Analytica, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg in Chicago, Illinois. 

The 6-count lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, asserts claims pursuant to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510 et seq., the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701, et seq., the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Practices Act, breach of contract, negligence, and the tort of intrusion upon seclusion. Plaintiffs Comforte and Carr claim that they were inundated with unwanted election-based news as a result of Cambridge's alleged data mining and targeted messages.

The lawsuit alleges CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA, LLC ("Cambridge") actively engaged in data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis for the purpose of influencing the 2016 United States presidential election. The lawsuit highlights how Facebook and Zuckerberg were warned of 3^rd-party access to user data as early as 2011 in relation to an Ireland-based legal proceeding. While recommendations were made by the Ireland-based office of the Data Protection Commissioner ("ODPC") to prevent and limit the disclosure of sensitive personal information to 3^rd parties. If the allegations surrounding Cambridge are true, it appears Facebook and Zuckerberg did not heed several of ODPC's warnings and recommendations. Notably, former Facebook executives who worked at Facebook around the time of ODPC  left Facebook to work for Uber - which has been mired in privacy-based issues and twice delayed disclosures of data breaches. 

Atlas Consumer Law has filed suit over concerns Cambridge Analytica improperly used the personal information of tens of millions of Facebook users to help influence the 2016 election. Numerous sources suggest that Facebook failed to enact protocols to prevent this from occurring. Further, it appears Facebook did not do enough to ensure users' personal information was deleted once Facebook learned the information was being misused.

Atlas Consumer Law has filed suit to obtain declaratory relief and compensatory damages for Cambridge's mining and misuse of personal information without class members' consent. They are asking the court to declare the defendants' misuse of personal information was illegal and Atlas Consumer Law is asking the court to require defendants demonstrate the personal information has been deleted and not shared with any other entities.

The suit will also ask the court to require Facebook to modify its policies to prevent this misuse of data from ever happening again and to require Facebook to be more user-friendly and transparent in terms of how it explains 3^rd-party apps.

Under no circumstances should a 3^rd-party have been able to ask a Facebook member's personal information through a friend's use of a 3^rd-party app. If it is learned through the discovery process that some type of default setting allowed this to happen, and/or Facebook failed to inform users their data could be accessed and mined through another friend's use of a third-party's application, this must never happen again.

For more information or to reach a representative of Atlas Consumer Law, call (312) 313-1613 today.

SOURCE Atlas Consumer Law