Facebook Inc. v. Privacy Commissioner of Canada (41538)

Facebook Inc. v. Privacy Commissioner of Canada (41538)

From Supreme Court of Canada Hearings (Floor Audio) by SCC Hearings Podcast

March 20, 2026 · 3h 11m

About this episode

The episode discusses a complaint against Facebook regarding its data sharing practices under PIPEDA, particularly in relation to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

On March 19, 2019, the respondent, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada received a complaint under s. 11(1) of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, S.C. 2000, c. 5 (“PIPEDA”) which raised concerns about the appellant Facebook’s compliance with the PIPEDA. The concerns were related to Facebook’s practice of sharing Facebook users’ personal information with third-party applications hosted on its platform. The complaint was filed in the context of reports related to a professor at the University of Cambridge, U.K., Dr. Aleksandr Kogan, who launched an application through Facebook’s Platform titled “thisisyourdigitallife” (“TYDL”) in November 2013. Presented to users as a personality quiz, Dr. Kogan could access the personal information of installing users and installing users’ friends. In December 2015, it was reported that user data obtained by TYDL was sold to a corporation named Cambridge Analytica and a related entity, Strategic Communication Laboratories Elections Ltd. (SCL), who, in turn, used the data purchased from Dr. Kogan to help their clients target political messaging to potential voters in the then upcoming presidential election in the United…

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Facebook Inc., Privacy Commissioner of Canada, University of Cambridge, Cambridge Analytica, Strategic Communication Laboratories Elections Ltd., PIPEDA

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