Facebook has reached preliminary settlement in a lawsuit filed against it for allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access private user data.

According to a court document submitted to a San Francisco court on Friday, Facebook said it had prepared “a settlement in principle” and asked it to suspend the proceedings for 60 days “to terminate the contract in writing and go to court”.

The social network did not specify the amount or terms under which it will handle this class action.

When asked by AFP, Facebook’s parent company Meta did not respond on Saturday.

The settlement came after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CEO Sheryl Sandberg, who resigned last June after 14 years at the company, were called to testify in court in September in the case.

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Facebook users accused the social network of violating privacy protection rules by sharing their data with third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, starting in 2018.

Cambridge Analytica, which has ceased its activities since this date, collected and used data from 87 million Facebook users without permission through the access provided by the platform.

The information obtained would be used to develop software to influence American voters in favor of Trump.

In July 2019, federal authorities fined Facebook $5 billion for “misleading” its users and exercised independent oversight over the processing of personal data.

Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook has withdrawn access to thousands of apps’ data, restricting what developers can access publicly, and making it easier for users to set permissions to share personal data.