If you were a Facebook user within a 15-year period, keep an eye on your bank account. Payments from the Cambridge Analytica data breach settlement are being issued this month, as reported by CBS News. A court document mentioned by CBS News suggests that the average compensation will be approximately $29 per individual, with a cap of $38.36. The initial payments will be processed in September, followed by the rest over a duration of 10 weeks. Recipients will be notified via email a few days prior. The total amount for the settlement is $725 million.

Those eligible for compensation are individuals who utilized Facebook between 2007 and 2022 and submitted a claim before the August 2023 cut-off date. Apologies for those who were unable to participate. This settlement arises from a legal case connected to the Cambridge Analytica controversy, where the UK data firm was accused of improperly harvesting data from over 50 million Facebook profiles without permission. Cambridge Analytica collaborated with the 2016 Donald Trump campaign and took some credit for his electoral success by pinpointing demographic changes that the campaign leveraged.

Though around $30 per individual may not appear to be adequate for all of that, it is nonetheless a form of compensation.