Facebook has finally been slapped with its first fine of £500,000 for allowing political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to improperly gather and misuse data of 87 million users.
The fine has been imposed by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and was calculated using the UK’s old Data Protection Act 1998 which can levy a maximum penalty of £500,000 — ironically that’s equals to the amount Facebook earns every 18 minutes.
The news does not come as a surprise as the U.K.’s data privacy watchdog already notified the social network giant in July this year that the commission was intended to issue the maximum fine.
For those unaware, Facebook has been under scrutiny since earlier this year when it was revealed that the personal data of 87 million users was improperly gathered and misused by political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica, who reportedly helped Donald Trump win the US presidency in 2016.
The ICO, who launched an investigation the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March, said that the data from at least 1 million British citizens was “unfairly processed,” and that Facebook “failed to take appropriate technical and organisational measures” to prevent the data from falling into the wrong hands.
images from Hacker News
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