WASHINGTON: A jury in New Mexico on Friday found Facebook-owner Meta deceived users about privacy protections, in a case linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, US media reported.

Cambridge Analytica was a political consulting firm that was found to have improperly harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users for targeted political advertising, particularly during the 2016 US election and Brexit referendum.

Revelations at the time showed that the company bought harvested data from a personality quiz app called “thisisyourdigitallife” that reached 270,000 users and their friends. The app ultimately reached roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide.

Facebook knew Cambridge Analytica had purchased the harvested data in December 2015 but withheld disclosure until April 2018, after a whistleblower came forward, sparking a major political scandal.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2026