When people search for “Facebook data breach,” they’re usually trying to make sense of several different incidents. Over the years, Facebook’s track record reads like a cautionary tale: data harvested by third parties, API flaws that should never have shipped, massive scraping operations, and security bugs that dominated headlines from 2018 through 2021. The fallout – enforcement actions and lawsuits – is still playing out in 2025.

And it matters more than you might think. Facebook’s platform was built on a massive ecosystem of apps, APIs, and integrations. That openness helped create the social web we know today. But it also created a huge attack surface for privacy, security, and governance risks.

This guide walks you through what happened, which data was exposed, and the key lessons organizations can apply today—from strengthening third-party risk management and securing APIs to detecting scraping activity and building transparent breach disclosure practices that stand up over time.

Facebook Data Breach History and Timeline

Facebook’s “breaches” weren’t one isolated event. They were a multi-year cascade of incidents where third parties collected data they shouldn’t have, app developers left user information sitting in public cloud buckets, scrapers abused the contact importer to harvest public profiles, and security bugs—such as the 2018 “View As” flaw—granted attackers access tokens at scale.

Understanding that sequence is critical. It shows how small control gaps become full-blown disasters when you ignore them long enough, dragging regulatory heat and legal liability behind them.

Facebook Data Breach 2025

In 2025, the focus has shifted to regulatory and legal follow-through rather than a brand-new, massive leak. The U.S. consumer class action over Facebook’s historical data-sharing practices became fully effective on May 22, 2025 after appeals. Court-ordered distribution beganis set to begin in late August or early September 2025 and continuedwill continue for  for roughly 10 weeks.

Over in the EU, Meta is still contesting or complying with earlier decisions on scraping and data transfers. Irish and EU authorities are actively monitoring remediation commitments and design-by-default obligations.

The bottom line? Facebook’s data governance remains under intense scrutiny. Continued oversight, audits, and settlement administration are the new normal.

Facebook Data Breaches in 2024

2024 proved that regulators have long memories. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission hit Meta with a €91 million fine in September over Facebook’s old habit of storing passwords in plaintext – a practice the company first admitted to back in March 2019. Then, in December, the DPC piled on another €251 million for the 2018 “View As” breach, where attackers stole access tokens.

And the pattern you need to watch is clear. Every major penalty comes back to the same core failures:

  • Slow or incomplete breach notifications
  • Weak documentation of security controls
  • Privacy-by-design that was more afterthought than architecture

If you’re building high-risk features, these aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re the table stakes regulators expect before you ship.

Facebook Data Breach in 2023

2023 split into two stories. The first wasn’t technically a breach, but it hit harder than most hacks: On May 22, Ireland’s DPC fined Meta a record €1.2 billion for moving EU user data to U.S. servers without proper safeguards. The ruling forced Meta to overhaul its entire data transfer process.

Think of it this way: You can have the tightest perimeter security in the world, but if your governance is broken, you’ll pay just as much as if you’d been hacked.

The second thread? A U.S. class action over Facebook’s historical data-sharing practices finally got court approval in October. After appeals wrapped up, it cleared the way for payouts in 2025. The lesson: Legal exposure from old security decisions doesn’t expire – it compounds.

Facebook Data Breach 2021

In April 2021, data on 533 million Facebook users showed up on a public forum. The exposed records included phone numbers that became keys to account takeovers, along with Facebook IDs that mapped out social graphs, plus the kind of profile details – names, locations, birthdates, email addresses – that make targeted attacks trivial.

But nobody hacked Facebook’s servers to get it. Instead, attackers scraped the data by abusing Facebook’s contact importer feature before the company locked it down in 2019. It’s like leaving your front door open and then acting surprised when someone walks in and takes photos of everything inside.

Why does this matter to you? Because phone numbers aren’t just contact info anymore. They’re what stands between someone’s account and a determined attacker running SIM-swap or recovery-flow exploits.

Regulators didn’t buy Facebook’s “but we didn’t get hacked” defense. In 2022, Meta caught fines for failing to build proper protections into the feature from day one. The regulators’ argument was simple: If you can predict that a feature will be abused, you’re responsible for preventing that abuse before you launch – not after it becomes a headline.

Facebook Data Breach 2019

2019 gave us two wake-up calls. First, the third-party data exposure problem: security researchers kept finding massive Facebook datasets sitting wide open in cloud storage. We’re talking about a 146GB nightmare filled with hundreds of millions of records – everything from engagement metrics to user details to plaintext app passwords just sitting there for anyone to grab. And these weren’t leaks from Facebook’s own servers. They came from app developers who’d once had legitimate access and then got careless with the data.

Second, Facebook admitted it had stored “hundreds of millions” of account passwords in plaintext inside its own internal logs. No one outside the company got their hands on them, but that’s not really the point. The practice created serious risk, and EU regulators eventually came knocking.

What does this tell you? Once platform data leaves the core environment, it’s like letting your house keys out into the world. You lose control. And internal logs? Treat them like production data, because if you don’t, you’re one misconfiguration away from a disaster.

Facebook Data Breach 2018

2018 was a rough year. In September, Facebook disclosed that attackers had exploited a chain of bugs in the “View As” feature to steal access tokens – those digital keys that keep you logged in. About 30 million accounts were hit. For 14 million people, attackers didn’t just get names and contact info – they grabbed everything from gender and relationship status to recent check-ins and more. Another 15 million lost contact details. And about 1 million had their tokens stolen without any further data access.

Then in December, Facebook reported a Photos API bug. Over a 12-day window in September, approved apps could potentially access photos users never even posted – images from Stories and Marketplace included. Up to 6.8 million users across roughly 1,500 apps were affected.

And the lesson is straightforward. The way you design features, scope your APIs, and handle tokens isn’t just a product decision. It’s a security decision. If you treat them like afterthoughts, you’re setting yourself up for exactly this kind of mess.

Cambridge Analytica Facebook Data Breach Details

Let’s be clear: Cambridge Analytica wasn’t a server hack. It was an app-platform failure, and it’s one of the most important cautionary tales in third-party risk management.

In 2014, an academic app called “thisisyourdigitallife” ran on Facebook’s Graph API v1. It lawfully collected data from people who installed it. But things went sideways when the app also pulled data from those participants’ Facebook friends – people who never consented to anything – under the platform rules at the time. The developer then handed that data over to Cambridge Analytica, which used it to build detailed voter profiles.

Facebook announced changes in 2014 to stop this friend-data harvesting for new apps and shut it down for existing apps in 2015. But by then, the damage was done. Data on tens of millions of people – eventually estimated at up to 87 million – had already left the platform.

This case became the defining example of what happens when third-party risk spirals out of control, when consent models have gaping holes, and when platforms don’t own their downstream accountability. It triggered the FTC’s record 2019 order and years of enforcement on both sides of the Atlantic. If you’re managing a platform or working with third-party vendors, this is your reminder: once data leaves your environment, you can’t just assume good behavior. You need controls, audits, and real accountability.

Facebook Data Breach Settlement and Compensation

The fallout was massive. In July 2019, Facebook agreed to a $5 billion settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. That’s not just a fine – it came with a 20-year order forcing Facebook to bake privacy accountability into its board governance, executive certifications, and independent assessments. The company also had to lock down third-party access and stop repurposing 2FA phone numbers for ads. On the same day, Facebook paid another $100 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to properly disclose data-misuse risks to investors.

Europe wasn’t done either. The Irish Data Protection Commission handed down sanction after sanction:

  • €17 million in March 2022 for a series of 2018 breaches
  • €265 million in November 2022 for scraping failures
  • A record €1.2 billion in May 2023 over EU-U.S. data transfers
  • €91 million in September 2024 for storing passwords in plaintext
  • €251 million in December 2024 for the 2018 access-token incident

In the U.S., Meta reached a $725 million class-action settlement covering users from May 24, 2007 to December 22, 2022. After appeals wrapped up, the settlement became effective on May 22, 2025, and checks started going out in late August or early September 2025.

These outcomes didn’t just cost Meta billions. They reshaped how the company handles compliance and became a cautionary map of what happens when privacy, security, and governance collide at scale.

Lessons Learned From Facebook Data Breaches

Third-party access, API design, and data defaults aren’t just engineering decisions – they’re security controls. If you tighten those levers and practice fast, transparent response, you’ll reduce your risk dramatically.

So, what should you prioritize? Here’s a quick checklist:

  • Limit third-party data by default. Grant the minimum scopes needed, set short-lived tokens, and revoke access automatically when there’s inactivity or policy violations.
  • Enforce strong API governance. Use centralized reviews, implement change freezes for high-risk endpoints, and create contracts that bind downstream storage, retention, and deletion.
  • Harden against scraping. Combine stricter rate-limiting, anomaly detection, proof-of-work challenges, and abuse-resistant look-up controls that align with user privacy settings.
  • Treat internal logs like production data. Remove plaintext secrets and PII, apply encryption and access controls, and monitor access at both the engineer and service levels.
  • Design for privacy by default. Build data minimization, purpose limitation, and just-in-time consent into your features. Test for feature chaining that could enable token misuse.
  • Run cross-functional incident response. Align your security, legal, and privacy teams on evidence capture, regulator notice, user communication, and post-incident hardening.

Small gaps compound at platform scale. An overly broad API scope here, a legacy setting there – these add up fast. Closing them early is a lot cheaper than litigating them later.

Panorays helps you get a clear picture of third-party security by automating assessments, monitoring for emerging risks, and tailoring workflows to each vendor relationship. Our AI-powered platform doesn’t just hand you generic scores. It helps you optimize defenses for each unique third-party connection and stay ahead with actionable remediation guidance.

Looking to strengthen third-party oversight after reading about the Facebook data breaches? See how Panorays supports personalized and adaptive third-party risk management – from risk assessments and supply chain discovery to continuous monitoring that scales as you grow. Book a personalized demo to learn more.

Facebook Data Breach FAQs