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- A district attorney general wants to add Mark Zuckerberg to a Facebook privacy lawsuit.
- The lawsuit was filed in 2018 on behalf of people affected by the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
- If added as a respondent, Zuckerberg could face potential financial penalties, The NYT reported.
The attorney general for the District of Columbia, Karl Racine, wants to add Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a respondent to a privacy lawsuit against the company.
Racine told The New York Times he planned to file an amendment adding Zuckerberg to an ongoing case first filed against Facebook in 2018 on behalf of DC residents whose data was compromised during the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
A 2010 product change that ultimately facilitated the kind of data-scraping used by Cambridge Analytica was Zuckerberg's "brain child," Racine told The Times, citing evidence uncovered during a period of discovery on the case.
Facebook had tried to get the lawsuit dismissed, but a judge denied the request in January 2019, leading to a discovery period.
"Under these circumstances, adding Mr. Zuckerberg to our lawsuit is unquestionably warranted, and should send a message that corporate leaders, including the CEO, will be held accountable for their actions," Racine told The Times in a statement.
If Zuckerberg was successfully added then he could be subject to financial penalties, The Times reported.
Per The Times, Racine can seek up to $5,000 for every resident who was affected by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In his original 2018 filing Racine said that more than 340,000 Washington DC residents were affected, although The Times reported that 300,000 residents were affected.
This could mean a maximum total penalty of up to $1.7 billion. It was not immediately clear how any financial penalty would be split between Facebook and Zuckerberg, should he be added as a respondent.
Insider emailed Racine's office for clarification out of hours, and did not immediately receive a reply.
Facebook can try to get Racine's amendment dismissed, The Times reported. Facebook did not immediately respond when contacted by Insider about whether it would seek to dismiss.
Facebook reached a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in July 2019 over its failure to protect user privacy in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Washington Post reported in July 2019 that the FTC had considered a much higher fine, as well as the possibility of holding Zuckerberg personally responsible.
Facebook shareholders filed a lawsuit against the company in September this year saying it overpaid the Federal Trade Commission by nearly $5 billion as part of a "quid pro quo" to protect Zuckerberg.