Facebook faces new UK class action after data harvesting scandal

Facebook is facing a second London High Court class action over allegations it failed to protect the personal details of about one million people in England and Wales, in the latest lawsuit to spring from a scandal over data harvesting.

Journalist and writer Peter Jukes said on Tuesday he had filed a lawsuit for unspecified but ‘substantial’ damages three years after the social media giant was fined in Britain over how third-party app ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ gathered Facebook users’ data without consent between 2013 and 2015.

The lawsuit is the second to allege Facebook allowed third-party apps to harvest the data of friends without their permission or knowledge. Litigation firm Milberg London, which is advising on a similar claim filed last October, said it was surprised to hear about the rival lawsuit.

The cases cast a fresh spotlight on a scandal that began with allegations that Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy hired by former president Donald Trump’s 2016 US election campaign, accessed the personal data of millions of Facebook users.