Lagos court rules Meta’s behavioural ads broke Nigerian law. Damages are $100,000

The High Court of Lagos State ruled on 25 September that Meta broke Nigeria’s data protection law by using personal data for behavioural ads. Justice A.F. Pokanu ordered Meta to pay damages equal to $100,000 in naira, plus 1 million naira in costs. The ruling was reported on 30 September by TheNigeriaLawyer and PPC Land.

Six applicants sued Meta over Facebook and Instagram data

The case was brought by the Laws and Rights Awareness Initiative, on behalf of Nigerian Facebook and Instagram users, and five individuals. The court found breaches of the privacy clause in Nigeria’s constitution and of several sections of the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023. These cover lawful basis, transparency, purpose limits and transfers of data abroad.

Meta must stop the unlawful processing of the applicants’ data at once. It also has eight weeks, until 20 November, to put remedies in place across its Nigerian operations and confirm this to the court. The judge refused extra punitive damages.

The court said profiling is not needed to run Facebook

Meta argued that users agree to profiling when they accept its terms, and that targeted ads pay for a free service. The court rejected this. It found that behavioural advertising, profiling, cross-platform tracking and ad analytics are “not indispensable to the delivery of the core services”.

According to PPC Land, the judgment cited European rulings, including the Bundeskartellamt case at the EU Court of Justice, as persuasive authority. Meta settled a separate dispute with Nigeria’s data protection commission for $32.8 million in October 2025.

Courts and regulators are testing ad data rules in several countries

Meta also faces courts over the ads it carries. In Germany, a Frankfurt court held Meta liable for scam ads using the Finanzfluss brand. In Ireland, the regulator fined Google €403m over location data.

The deadline to watch is 20 November. By then Meta must file proof with the Lagos court that it has changed its data processing in Nigeria.