Facebook Rules Out Compensation For Users Affected By Data Scandal

Facebook has emerged relatively unscathed from the Cambridge Analytica data misuse scandal in which personal data of millions of Facebook users was leaked. The company has taken steps since then to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been meeting with lawmakers to detail the company’s data practices. Zuckerberg met with lawmakers in Europe yesterday to discuss some of these matters. While some might have expected compensation for the 2.7 million European users who were impacted by the data breach, Facebook has ruled out that possibility.

Facebook says that it’s unlikely to compensate the 2.7 million European users because no sensitive bank account information had been leaked. The company’s statement followed Zuckerberg’s meeting with members of the European Parliament.

“This was clearly a breach of trust. However, it’s important to remember that no bank account details, credit card information or national ID numbers were shared,” the company said in a statement. It also pointed out that in the data breach, the information on U.S. users and not EU users was sold.

While dismissing any possibility of monetary compensation, Facebook has dismissed another EU lawmaker’s proposal which called for a split of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, saying that users stand to benefit from the packaged service which has over two billion users across the globe combined.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Web
Tags: Facebook