New Mexico takes Facebook to trial over Cambridge Analytica
Archived — this story has rotated out of today’s deck. It is kept here in full.
The gist
New Mexico took Facebook to trial Wednesday over the Cambridge Analytica data breach.
About 350,000 New Mexicans were exposed; it's the only state to reach trial.
Background
Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, bought Facebook user data harvested from millions of profiles to generate targeted ads during the 2016 election. After the scandal broke in 2018, state attorneys general filed a wave of data-privacy lawsuits, but most states reached a joint agreement with Meta. New Mexico chose to sue alone, and is now the only state to push its case to trial.
How it unfolded
- 2013 -2015Personal data of about 350,000 New Mexicans — full names, addresses, phone numbers, interests and political affiliations — was handed to Cambridge Analytica, according to the lawsuit.
- 2018News breaks that London-based Cambridge Analytica harvested Facebook data for political campaigns, prompting a wave of state lawsuits.
- 2019Then-New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas files suit against Facebook, choosing to go alone rather than join a multi-state coalition.
- 2021The lawsuit is filed by then-Attorney General Balderas as part of the wave of state data-privacy suits.
- Sep 9, 2026Opening statements begin in Santa Fe's First Judicial District Court; the state calls Dr. Calum Matheson as its first witness.
Who’s saying what
- Official
- Attorney General Raúl Torrez said the breach 'didn't just expose private information, it revealed a pattern of misrepresentation about how user data was collected, shared, and exploited.'
- Party
- Attorneys for New Mexico and for Meta offered the Santa Fe jury sharply different views of Facebook's role in the decade-old scandal.
Still unverified
The trial is expected to last around four weeks and include video depositions of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg; the state seeks maximum civil penalties under New Mexico's Unfair Practices Act, up to $5,000 per violation, plus an injunction. The exact start date is reported as Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, but some sources give conflicting dates.