Everything You Need To Know About The Canadian Lawsuit Against Facebook

The world's largest social media platform can't catch a break from the True North and now there's a Canadian lawsuit against Facebook.

It seems the latest legal action for the social network involves getting sued by Canadians and it's not the first time.

Previously they received a discrimination class-action lawsuit and a very recent class-action lawsuit for data breach by way of Canadians. 

The latter, saw two Canadians going head to head with Facebook for damages and monetary compensation after the company allegedly allowed companies to gain access to users' personal data.

Here is everything that led to the Canadian lawsuit happening right now.

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How did it all start?

Like every good story, this one started a long time ago, kind of.

In April of last year, the privacy commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien asked for Canada to implement some hefty laws that could better protect Canadians citing he found some big red flags with Facebook's operations, according to The Canadian Press via CTV News. 

This came after reports that the social network made it easy for many companies to get their hands on users' personal information with the help of an app once called "This is Your Digital Life," the report said. 

The app basically lets users take a quiz on their personality; however, it reportedly collected data of the user and their friends on the site.*   

Per the report, 300,000 Facebook users downloaded the app around the world which possibly disclosed the information of about 87 million people.

And apparently, 622,000 of those were Canadians.

What laws did Facebook break in Canada?

Per the report, the commissioner believed Facebook broke Canada's privacy law.

He also said that the company failed to get consent from app users and their friends in the first place.

Because of this, the commissioner set in motion his own federal court action.

He reportedly asked a judge to acknowledge that the social media giant violated Canadians and the countries' privacy law.

What has Facebook said about it?

Per The Canadian Press' report, Facebook did, in fact, declare it a "major breach of trust" when referencing Cambridge Analytica and its role in all of this.

Still, they did not agree with the commissioner who said the company did not carry through with Canada's "recommendations."

Equally, the online giant apparently wanted the court to throw out the commissioner's findings that Facebook allowed data to be shared for "political purposes," the report said.

Contrary to the findings, the company has reportedly said that no evidence existed that Canadian users had their data given to Cambridge Analytica.*

*Editor's note: This article has been updated.