Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine has filed a lawsuit against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the 2015 data breach scandal involving the now shut down political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. The leak in question was reported in 2018 over concerns that the firm gained access to this user data and used it to aid the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.

"The evidence shows Mr. Zuckerberg was personally involved in Facebook's failure to protect the privacy and data of its users leading directly to the Cambridge Analytica incident," Racine said in a statement about the lawsuit released Monday. "This unprecedented security breach exposed tens of millions of Americans' personal information, and Mr. Zuckerberg's policies enabled a multi-year effort to mislead users about the extent of Facebook's wrongful conduct."

He added, "This lawsuit is not only warranted, but necessary, and sends a message that corporate leaders, including CEOs, will be held accountable for their actions."

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The attorney general believes Zuckerberg should be held personally accountable for the incident, which allegedly exposed over 87 million people’s data.

According to Racine's complaint, "this data trove included Facebook users' ages, interests, pages they've like, groups they belong to, physical locations, political affiliation, religious affiliation, relationships, and photos, as well as their full names, phone numbers and email addresses."

"In other words," the filing continues, "Cambridge Analytica used the Facebook Platform – in a way that Facebook and Zuckerberg encouraged – to influence and manipulate the outcome of a United States presidential election."

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This is not the first time Facebook has faced government scrutiny over the leak, as in 2019 the Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook $5 billion over the scandal and added new restrictions to the company regarding decisions that affect user privacy.