Amanda Branch authored an article “Misleading Privacy Claims Results in $9 Million Dollar Penalty for Facebook” by OBA

Amanda Branch authored an article "Misleading Privacy Claims Results in $9 Million Dollar Penalty for Facebook", published by Ontario Bar Association (OBA).

On May 19, 2020 the Competition Bureau announced that as part of a registered settlement, Facebook Inc. will pay a $9 million penalty plus an additional $500,000 for the costs of the Bureau’s investigation. The investigation by the Bureau took into account Facebook’s practices between August 2012 and June 2018 and concluded that Facebook made false or misleading claims about the privacy of Canadians’ personal information on Facebook and Messenger. Specifically, the Bureau found that Facebook gave users the impression that by using its privacy features, users could control who could see and access their personal information on the platform; however, Facebook did not actually limit the sharing of user’s personal information (e.g., content posted on Facebook, messages exchanged between users through Messenger) with some third-party developers in a way that was consistent with its privacy claims.

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This article was first published by Bereskin & Parr LLP on May 20, 2020.