Photo: Reproduction
Recently, the Facebook was sentenced by the 29th Civil Court of Belo Horizonte to pay a fine of R$20 million in collective moral damages due to problems with data leaks from users of the Messenger and WhatsApp social networks.
According to the information, the company responsible will have to pay an amount of R$5,000 for moral and individual damages to each user who proves that they used the social network between 2018 and 2019.
In an official statement, Meta, the company responsible for the Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads applications, said that it has not yet been formally informed of the decision and that it may still appeal it.
Not just in Brazil, but Facebook users in the United States will also be able to request a portion of the US$725 million that Meta agreed to pay at the end of 2022 due to a similar process in the country.
Facebook trial in Brazil
The Brazilian trial analyzed two public actions by the Instituto Defesa Coletiva, which were filed after a series of leaks of users’ personal information.
The first leak occurred in September 2018. Hackers managed to break Facebook’s security and access details, such as name, telephone number and email, of 15 million users.
In the same case, another 14 million people had even more specific data accessed. Religiongender, languagecity, relationship status, location and date of birth are some of them.
A few months later, another leak occurred on the platform. In this case, cybercriminals managed to disclose around 22 thousand account passwords and movement details of more than 540 million users.
The two cases were added to the first action against the platform, filed in May 2019.
In July 2020, the company faced another lawsuit, this time citing the vulnerability of the WhatsApp application in May 2019. At the time, hackers invaded the WhatsApp application. Whatsapp and installed programs to access cell phone data. The company did not say how many users were affected in this case.
In December 2019, Facebook caused a headache again. In this case, users had their photos leaked. Additionally, hackers were able to upload unpublished images to Stories. The case counted more than 6 million victims.
José Maurício Cantarino Villela, judge of the 29th Civil Court of Belo Horizonte, recognized, during the sentence, that the responsibility for the failures of security of the system belongs to the company. However, regarding requests for preventive measures against new attacks, the judge dismissed them as unfounded.
How to request compensation?
In the collective civil action, Facebook did not present any material that included the names of the people who had their data leaked. Furthermore, the platform did not prove that it had warned these people about the problem.
Therefore, the Institute for Collective Defense understands that the sentence covers all consumers who were users of the service at the time. Therefore, the consumer Interested in receiving compensation must file an execution of the collective sentence to be entitled to compensation of R$5,000.
The amount in question refers to a collective action. This means that the user may be compensated up to R$10,000 if they can prove that they were already linked to the platform at the time of the leaks.
Proof of activity can be done through screenshots of the user profile timeline or through a report with the history of activities on the platform. Check below the step-by-step guide on how to extract this report.
How to extract Facebook activity report?
1. Access the Facebook application;
two. Go to “Settings and privacy”;
3. Click where it says “Your time on Facebook”;
4. Go to “See time”;
5. Access “View records”;
6. Finally, click on “View activity history” and save your history on your device.
How to extract the WhatsApp activity report
In the case of WhatsApp, the conversations can also be used as evidence.
1. Access the WhatsApp application;
two. Go to “Settings”;
3. Click on “Account”;
4. Go to “Request account data”;
5. Finish by clicking “Request report” and save your report on your device.
