Nearly ten years after the world first learned about Cambridge Analytica harvesting data from tens of millions of profiles, most states have happily closed the book. They took their payouts, signed away future claims, and moved on. Not New Mexico.
The state's Department of Justice kicked off a high-stakes trial in Santa Fe's First Judicial District Court, dragging Meta into a courtroom alone. While 47 other U.S. states wrapped up a massive, multi-billion-dollar agreement covering child safety and privacy concerns, New Mexico refused to drop the hammer.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez isn't interested in settling quietly. The state's ongoing legal battle targets Facebook under the Unfair Practices Act, arguing that the tech giant didn't just suffer an accidental data leak—it actively misled consumers about how their personal information was harvested, shared, and weaponized.
The Cost of Going It Alone
When the original scandal broke in 2018, it exposed how a simple personality quiz could scrape data from roughly 87 million users and funnel it straight to a political consulting firm. Most jurisdictions eventually rolled those grievances into massive, sweeping settlements. Meta recently shelled out roughly $18 billion to resolve various multi-state actions, tucking releases for the Cambridge Analytica breach into the fine print.
New Mexico chose a different path back in 2021 when former Attorney General Hector Balderas filed an independent lawsuit. By refusing to join the national consensus, the state kept its day in court alive.
It is a massive gamble. Trials are expensive, unpredictable, and fiercely contested by corporate legal teams. But for New Mexico, the strategy stems from a desire for actual accountability rather than closed-door compromises. State lawyers argue that roughly 350,000 local residents had their data exposed, but the broader damage touched the entire population of the state.
What the Trial Will Actually Prove
The courtroom showdown in Santa Fe is scheduled to last roughly four weeks. It features video depositions from heavy hitters like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former COO Sheryl Sandberg, forcing top executives to answer for operational choices made a decade ago.
State attorneys plan to show jurors internal company communications. They claim Facebook flagged thousands of risky third-party applications internally yet deliberately chose not to warn users or force apps to delete harvested data, prioritizing advertising revenue over privacy protection.
Meta's defense centers on timing and relevance. Their lawyers argue that the evidence is ancient history, pointing out that tech practices and platform safeguards have evolved dramatically since 2016. They maintain that trying to penalize the company now for a decade-old controversy misrepresents how the platform operated at the time.
A Record of Aggressive Prosecution
This isn't an isolated crusade for New Mexico's legal team. They have already proven they are willing to take Meta all the way to a verdict.
Earlier this year, a Santa Fe jury ordered Meta to pay hundreds of millions of dollars after finding the company misrepresented the mental health risks its platforms posed to teens. That willingness to secure massive judgments outside of federal settlements gives this current trial real teeth.
The state is seeking maximum civil penalties under the Unfair Practices Act—up to $5,000 per violation—alongside a strict injunction to prevent future data breaches. Because the state argues that millions of residents were indirectly harmed by deceptive practices, the potential financial exposure for Meta could scale rapidly depending on how the judge counts individual violations.
No matter the final verdict, this trial changes the landscape of tech accountability. While Washington and other states opted for negotiated payouts, New Mexico is forcing big tech to defend its past choices in open court. If the state wins big, expect other localized regulators to rethink the comfort of multi-state settlements and start demanding their own day in front of a jury.
