Judge orders Facebook to hand over emails about data privacy

A US judge has ruled in favor of Facebook shareholders, ordering that the global social media behemoth must hand over emails concerning the Cambridge Analytica case.

The data gathering and handling scandal concerns the British consulting firm of the same name allegedly managing to assert its influence to the degree of eventually managing to influence the US presidential election process in 2016, thanks to the data brokerage and analysis it had obtained and then leveraged via Facebook’s third-party policies.

Last September, Facebook shareholders sued in order to learn how the data leak happened in the first place – and now, according to Engadget they will be given access to documents – emails and other records that are expected to show how Facebook went about the Cambridge Analytica case.

For now, Delaware Chancery Court Vice Chancellor Joseph Slights announced that shareholders would be right in suspecting that the social media giant’s board had not in fact been above the board – in its dealings around and concerning the issue, that is – but also pointed out that this particular decision does not mean Facebook had in fact broken any rules.

To find out, or prove that, shareholders would have to file further lawsuits, and on different grounds, the report said.

This is not the only legal challenge that Facebook has had to face concerning the Cambridge Analytica case – recently, a counsel for Facebook told another court that users of this tech giant’s social platforms – and indeed, those of other similar companies, similarly powerfully positioned in the market – had no expectation of privacy.

And that’s because – “three is no privacy,” said Facebook’s representative.

Meanwhile, Reuters has reported that a US judge in Washington DC threw out Facebook’s motion to dismiss the request of a local prosecutor in that state, regarding what is said to be the company’s improper sharing of data belonging to 87 million users, also concerning the Cambridge Analytica case.

DC Attorney General Karl Racine sued Facebook on several counts, including that the company knew Cambridge Analytica had user data in question more than two years before this had become public knowledge.