Facebook users might have already moved on to the company’s next notable outrage, but the company is still answering for its privacy missteps from earlier this year.
Washington, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit against Facebook on Wednesday, alleging that the company has not fulfilled its responsibility to protect user data. Racine’s office specifically cites the Cambridge Analytica scandal in the suit, noting that Facebook’s lax data sharing policies with third-parties led to users having their personal data harvested for profit without their consent.
“Facebook failed to protect the privacy of its users and deceived them about who had access to their data and how it was used,” Attorney General Racine said of his decision to sue the company. “Facebook put users at risk of manipulation by allowing companies like Cambridge Analytica and other third-party applications to collect personal data without users’ permission. Today’s lawsuit is about making Facebook live up to its promise to protect its users’ privacy.”
According to its announcement, the D.C. AG’s office will seek an injunction to pressure Facebook to implement “protocols and safeguards” to oversee user data sharing as well as privacy tools that simplify protections for users. The full text of the suit is embedded below.