Australia:
Two subsidiaries of Facebook parent company Meta have been ordered to pay the federal government $20m in penalties for contraventions of Australian consumer law, over claims the subsidiaries secretly collected and aggregated users’ personal data for Facebook’s commercial benefit.
The Federal Court action brought by the Australian competition and consumer watchdog related to
Facebook’s Onavo Protect mobile app, which provided a virtual private network for users. Facebook shut down that app in 2019 after it had been downloaded more than 270,000 times by Australian users.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleged that between February 2016 and October 2017, Facebook misled Australian customers by telling them the Onavo app would keep users’ personal data private and secure, when instead Facebook used the data to support its market research activities, including potential future acquisition targets.
Justice Wendy Abraham on Wednesday ordered that the two Meta subsidiaries each pay $10m to the commonwealth.
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