United States: FTC authorized to reopen privacy case against Meta

by Mike Scarcella and David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Friday rejected Meta Platforms’ request to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from reopening an investigation into its Facebook subsidiary for alleged privacy violations .

In its order, the Washington DC Circuit Court of Appeal considers that Meta has not demonstrated that the facts he disputes have a chance of succeeding on appeal. The Court said Meta “has not met its heavy burden of demonstrating that it is entitled to injunctive relief pending appeal.”

This same appeals court had rejected on March 12 a separate request from Meta, in a related case, aimed at suspending the FTC investigation, announced last year, despite the objections of the social network, which has already paid a fine of five billion dollars and accepted a series of safeguard measures.

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The FTC wants to strengthen the agreement on personal data protection concluded in 2020 with Facebook, to prohibit the exploitation of the data of minors and to extend restrictions on facial recognition technology. The FTC accuses Meta of misleading parents about their children’s privacy.

Meta, which denies these accusations, launched a lawsuit against the FTC in November as part of a broad constitutional appeal, calling into question the agency’s ability to be both an investigative and adjudicatory body. Meta had notably declared that by allowing the FTC to continue its action, it was harming its rights.

The FTC and Meta had no immediate comment.

(Report by David Shepardson, French version by Claude Chendjou)