Dutch foundation behind lawsuit against TikTok claims billions from Facebook

This article was published on October 25th, 2023 on Agconnect.nl.

The Dutch Market Information Research Foundation (SOMI) is starting a claim case against Facebook parent company Meta Platforms due to privacy violations on the social media platform. The foundation, which previously started a case against TikTok, says it is claiming 10.5 billion euros for all Dutch Facebook users and is calling on people to register for a procedure.

This is an issue for which Facebook was fined 265 million euros last year  by the Irish privacy watchdog DPC. A few years ago, the data of more than half a billion Facebook users around the world was leaked to hackers, who then stole it and even offered phone numbers for sale.

Access to personal data

According to SOMI , Meta has "largely violated privacy laws by giving unauthorized persons access to the personal data of Facebook users." More than 5 million people in the Netherlands are said to have been affected by the leak. The foundation also accuses Meta of poorly handling user data for years.

According to SOMI, every Dutch user should therefore receive 500 euros in compensation. The foundation believes that compensation should be 1,000 euros for every Dutch user who was affected by the data breach in April 2021.

Read full article (in Dutch): https://www.agconnect.nl/business/juridisch/stichting-achter-tiktok-zaak-claimt-miljarden-van-facebook