This article accompanies the general publication at noon Dublin time on 6 November 2019 of confidential Facebook files leaked anonymously and securely to Duncan Campbell in February 2019. The entire Facebookleaks collection is generally available from today, online on the websites of Computer Weekly in the UK and on NBC in the United States. In the event of any difficulty or disruption, the material will also be available from additional European sites.

What's in these Facebook leaks? The leaks comprises nearly 7,000 pages, including 428 exhibits. All of the documents were prepared for a long-running law suit in California state court, between former Facebook app developer Six4three LLC and Facebook inc. The material is assembled as four large PDF files. The contents are: Declaration opposing SLAPP application by Facebook by David Godkin (Counsel for Six4three) 16 May 2018 (72 pages) with 212 Sealed Exhibits 16 May 2018 (3727 pages, including 7 sealed depositions from Michael Vernal and other witnesses), appended to the Declaration. [Download from NBC News, Download from ComputerWeekly] - Caution: This file is 629MB

As leaked, multiple pages in some Depositions were not included, without explanation. Two full Depositions referred to in the Declaration of 16 May 2018, from Tim Gildea (Ex 8) and Tom Scaramellino (Ex 9) are also missing from the Exhibits bundle. Declaration for Judicial Notice by David Godkin 17 May 2018 (21 pages) with 218 Exhibits 17 May 2018 (2716 pages) [Download from NBC News, Download from ComputerWeekly] - Caution: 50MB Memorandum of Points and Authorities by David Godkin (with embedded highlights) 20 May 2018 (20 pages) [Download from NBC News, Download from ComputerWeekly] Notes and Summaries from Facebook Documents in Discovery (with multiple colour embedded highlights) (415 pages). The notes appear to include Bates numbers (discovery sequence page numbers) running from FB-00000001 to FB-01369111. This may imply the discovery notes were made while accessing nearly 1.4 million pages of confidential Facebook files and e-mails. [Download from NBC News, Download from ComputerWeekly] Much of the sealed material is marked "CONFIDENTIAL" or "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL". The marking used identifies Facebook's assessment of the sensitivity of the disclosed documents. It is not classification applied by the California court. 1210 pages are marked "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL by Facebook.

How was it leaked? The PDFs were received by Duncan Campbell in the UK on the day that the UK Parliament DCMS committee published a report on Monday 18 February 2019. The original files have been processed to make the material ready to search and/or index, using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) methods. In these processes, no pages were added to or removed from the leak collection, and no page was altered in appearance or redacted.

Who leaked the material? The source(s) are unknown. The source(s) acted anonymously, using a secure electronic communications method. They did not communicate with Duncan Campbell before supplying the files and have not communicated since publication of material from the leak began on Friday 22 February.

The documents in this collection may or may not be the same set of documents, or a similar set of documents, as was seized in London in November by parliamentary officials acting for the DCMS committee under parliamentary warrant. All the documents previously published by DCMS are included in the PDFs.

The general circumstances of the DCMS London seizure, including the responses by Facebook and complaints to the Superior Court of California, San Mateo, are described in a Daily Telegraph article on 8 December 2018.

For more background about the significance of these leaks, see these stories from NBC News and Computer Weekly.