German court says Facebook users affected by data breach are entitled to compensation

BERLIN: Facebook users whose data was illegally obtained in 2018 and 2019 are eligible for compensation, a German court said on Monday.

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled that loss of control over one’s online data is grounds for compensation without having to prove specific financial losses.

Thousands of Facebook users in Germany are seeking compensation from parent company Meta for inadequate protection of their data after unknown third parties gained access to user accounts by guessing their phone numbers.

The claims arising from a 2021 data breach of information collected through the Facebook friend search feature were rejected in principle by a lower court in Cologne and will now have to be re-examined.

The plaintiff had requested damages of 1,000 euros ($1,056), but BGH said without evidence of any financial loss, around 100 euros would be appropriate.

According to the Karlsruhe-based court, the lower court must determine whether Facebook’s terms of use are transparent and understandable and whether users’ consent to the use of their data is voluntary.

Meta had previously refused to pay compensation on the grounds that those affected could not prove any concrete damage.

A Meta spokesman said the BGH’s decision was “inconsistent with the recent case law of the European Court of Justice, Europe’s highest court.”

“Similar claims have already been rejected 6,000 times by German courts, with multiple judges ruling that there is no claim for liability or compensation,” the spokesman said. he said. “Facebook’s systems were not hacked in this incident and there was no data breach.”

Approximately six million people in Germany were affected by the leak.

($1 = 0.9471 euro)