A German court has ruled that Facebook users impacted by a massive data breach are eligible for compensation.
As per Reuters, on Monday, the German court said that Facebook users whose data was illegally obtained in 2018 and 2019 were eligible for compensation.
A ruling from the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) allowed that the loss of control over one's data online was the reason for seeking compensation without the need to demonstrate particular financial losses.
In Germany, thousands of Facebook users are requesting reimbursement from parent company Meta due to a lack of data security after unknown third parties breached the details by guessing phone numbers.
Notably, the Cologne lower court had refuted the assertions but they will now need to be re-checked.
The accusations relate to a 2021 data breach of information obtained using the Facebook friend search tool.
The BGH determined that about 100 euros would be sufficient in place of the plaintiff's 1,000 euro ($1,056) damages demand, with no evidence of monetary loss
Previously, Meta refused to compensate users because the affected people failed to provide poofs of any concrete damages.
A Meta spokesperson said the BGH's ruling was "inconsistent with the recent case law of the European Court of Justice, the highest court in Europe."
"Similar claims have already been dismissed 6,000 times by German courts, with a large number of judges ruling that no claims for liability or damages exist," the spokesperson said, adding, "Facebook's systems were not hacked in this incident and there was no data breach."
