Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and head of its parent company Meta, is being personally sued as part of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The US District of Columbia is suing him, claiming he was personally liable for the data scandal, which affected millions of Facebook users.

According to DC Attorney General Karl Racine, who is bringing the suit against Zuckerberg, the Meta CEO helped create the data-sharing framework, despite its potential dangers, and joined in decision-making around the practice.

As the company’s CEO, chairman of the board and majority shareholder, the suit alleges that Zuckerberg “maintains an unparalleled level of control over the operations of Facebook as it has grown into the largest social media company in the world”.

In addition, he said his claims are backed up by documents that connect Zuckerberg with the decision-making process on Cambridge Analytica.

“This unprecedented security breach exposed tens of millions of Americans’ personal information, and Mr. Zuckerberg’s policies enabled a multi-year effort to mislead users about the extent of Facebook’s wrongful conduct,” Racine added.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal saw a Facebook whistleblower reveal that the company illegally harvested and misused Facebook data to influence public votes.

The data analytics company used information sourced from up to 87 million Facebook profiles to influence both the 2016 US Elections and the Brexit Referendum

When it broke in early 2018, Facebook had around $50 billion knocked off its value. Later, Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy.

In the wake of the scandal, Zuckerberg apologised and declared that Facebook would increase transparency and introduce regulations on how the platform is used by political campaigns.

A decision by the ICO meant that 240 million US voters were given the power to request their data from Cambridge Analytica. Later in 2018, the ICO fined the company £500,000 for failing to protect user data, with its parent company SCL Elections fined over £15,000 for failing to comply with the investigation.

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While Facebook, as Meta was known before its name change, has been involved in lawsuits as part of the scandal, this is the first time that Zuckerberg was personally sued.

Attorney General Racine wanted to add Zuckerberg as a defendant to an ongoing suit against Cambridge Analytica last year. However, a judge prevented this as he had waited too long to add the Meta head to the suit.

However, he blamed this on Meta being slow to deliver evidence, creating delays.

“Since filing our landmark lawsuit against Facebook, my office has fought tooth and nail against the company’s characteristic efforts to resist producing documents and otherwise thwart our suit. We continue to persist and have followed the evidence right to Mr Zuckerberg,” Racine noted.

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