Supreme Court agrees to review Facebook’s arguments in privacy case

The Supreme Court of Canada has decided it will review Meta Platforms Inc.’s arguments in a long-running dispute with the federal Office of the Privacy (OPC) Commissioner over its users’ privacy, after the OPC accused it of violating Canada’s private sector privacy law. The Facebook owner looked to bring its fight to the country’s highest court in November, seeking its analysis of two points it argues have been raised by the debate on the matter: how should courts determine whether an organization has gotten meaningful consent from its users to share personal information with a third party, and how should courts determine whether an organization has kept in place reasonable security safeguards? That was after a Federal Court of Appeal judge found in September that Facebook was in breach of the country’s privacy law, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), by allegedly failing to get “meaningful consent” from its users when gathering their data and failing to safeguard that data in the wake of the data harvesting incident known as the Cambridge Analytica Scandal. The scandal first broke in 2018 when Christopher Wylie, the Canadian who helped build Cambridge Analytica, blew the whistle on the company for reportedly having used an app called TYDL — or “thisisyourdigitallife” — to harvest the information of some 87 million Facebook users in the preceding years, with Cambridge Analytica then using the data to advise the U.S. presidential campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Under PIPEDA, an organization must make a “reasonable effort to ensure that the individual is advised of the purposes for which the information will be used” and that “the purposes must be stated in such a manner that the individual can reasonably understand how the information will be used or disclosed.” The TYDL app, once installed by a given Facebook user, was able to access data from that user and their entire “friend” network, according to court documents. Approximately 272 Canadian users installed the app, enabling the disclosure of the data of over 600,000 Canadians, according to appeal court Justice Donald Rennie’s decision. The fight began with an application from Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner. In a 2019 report, the OPC declared that it felt Facebook had failed to obtain meaningful consent from its users with regards to the gathering of data by the TYDL app from 2013 to 2015, and also failed to adequately safeguard user information. Facebook takes issue with the Federal Court of Appeal’s understanding of its policies. “Inconsistently, the Court of Appeal criticized Facebook’s policies both for being overinclusive (‘the length of an Alice Munro short story’) and for being underinclusive (‘not warn users that bad actors could… potentially access user data’),” the social media company stated about Rennie’s decision. “The court failed to acknowledge that these digital policies contained numerous hyperlinks with more information, and gave no hint at what length might be appropriate or why the policies were unduly complex, especially given their supplementation by plain language educational materials and tools,” Facebook stated. In an emailed statement sent Thursday, June 12, the Privacy Commissioner’s office told The Wire Report it “looks forward to presenting its position before the Supreme Court to advance privacy protections for Canadians.” “A key issue in this matter is ensuring meaningful consent for the collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. When Canadians have confidence that their data is protected and used responsibly, it supports their well-being while fostering an environment where businesses can thrive, innovate responsibly, and earn public trust,” it said in its statement. Meta did not return a request for comment. news@thewirereport.ca

Supreme Court agrees to review Facebook’s arguments in privacy case

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By Wire Report Staff
| June 12, 2025

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Supreme Court agrees to review Facebook’s arguments in privacy case

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