Legal action is commencing against Facebook following the alleged failings at the social media site during the Cambridge Analytica scandal that surfaced in mid-2018.

This is a significant case which is expected to continue for at least three years and argues that Facebook “lost control” over personal data, which will warrant compensation to individual users.

Victory in the case, which is being led by journalist and editor of Byline Times, Peter Jukes, could result in a significant cost for Facebook as the misuse of the data is alleged to have occurred over more than two million accounts in the UK.

The Scandal itself involved the collection of personal data of Facebook users without consent via the Cambridge Analytica app. The data was mostly used to inform and target political advertising. Following the scandal, Facebook's share price dropped to a yearly low but began to recover in 2019 as the story started to see less media coverage.

Facebook was already fined the maximum amount of £500,00 in the UK for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which the Information Commissioner’s Office described as a “serious breach” of data privacy, but this does not stop this action from taking place. In America, a Federal Trade Commission case on the same issue led to nearly $23m in fines.

While these are large numbers, they are somewhat of a drop in the ocean for a company the size of Facebook and may simply not be a huge deterrent to the company in the future. Facebook has developed a reputation for being somewhat anti-consumer in its privacy practices, long before the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook has also been making waves recently in their opposition to planned privacy-focused changes by Apple on iOS.

Facebook states that this new case is without merit due to lack of any evidence:

The Information Commissioner's Office investigation into these issues, which included seizing and interrogating Cambridge Analytica's servers, found no evidence that any UK or EU users' data was transferred by Dr Kogan to Cambridge Analytica.

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