Ontario Superior Court Denies Certification Of Cambridge Analytica Class Action

On February 16, 2021, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed a motion for class certification in Simpson v. Facebook, Inc., a putative privacy class action. Justice Belobaba held that there was no basis in fact for the existence of the proposed common issues, and therefore no justification for a class proceeding. His reasons address the evidentiary requirement of "some basis in fact" and reinforce that certification can be a meaningful screening device in privacy class actions.

Background

This was one of several putative class actions filed in Canada with allegations that a third party named Cambridge Analytica had obtained information about Canadian Facebook users from a professor and third-party application developer named Kogan. In 2018, the plaintiff was granted carriage of a proposed class action on behalf of "Canadian residents whose Facebook Information was shared with Cambridge Analytica Group."