The case, which could be worth up to £3 billion, has been brought by legal academic Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, on behalf of 45 million Facebook users.

Her claim was refused in 2023 but a revised version has now been given the go-ahead, with early 2026 to be the latest the case could be heard.

Meta said the claims “remain entirely without merit and we will vigorously defend against them”. The new claim argues: “Facebook has struck an unfair bargain with its users,” according to legal papers.

Facebook is accused of abusing its dominant position by forcing users to give it data from non-Facebook products, including Instagram, which is also owned by Meta, and other sites.

Sharing data with third parties has become “a condition of accessing the Facebook platform, pursuant to a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ offer”.

The claim seeks £2.07-3.1bn in compensation for people who had Facebook accounts between February 2016 and October 2023 and will be heard at the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Meta said the “fundamental concerns identified by the tribunal in its February 2023 judgement have not been resolved”.

It added that it was “committed to giving people meaningful control” of the information they shared on its platforms and to “invest heavily to create tools that allow them to do so”.

The action is being funded by Innsworth, which is supported by an investment management fund.

Last year Meta paid out $725m (£583m) to Facebook account holders in the US in a privacy case.