Pierluigi Paganini November 25, 2018

Facebook appeals 500,000-pound fine for failing to protect users’ personal information in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Facebook appeals the fine for failing to protect the privacy of the users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica improperly collected data of 87 million Facebook users and misused it.

Facebook has been fined £500,000 in the U.K., the maximum fine allowed by the UK’s Data Protection Act 1998, for failing to protect users’ personal information.

Now Facebook is sustaining that U.K regulators failed to prove that British users were directly affected.

Britain’s Information Commissioner Office also found that the company failed to be transparent about how people’s data was harvested by others.

According to the ICO,  even after the misuse of the data was discovered in December 2015, Facebook did not do enough to ensure those who continued to hold it had taken adequate and timely remedial action, including deletion. Other companies continued to access Facebook users’data such as the SCL Group, that was able to access the platform until 2018.

Facebook considers the fine as unacceptable because there are many practices online that are commonly accepted even if they threaten the privacy of the users.

“Their reasoning challenges some of the basic principles of how people should be allowed to share information online, with implications which go far beyond just Facebook, which is why we have chosen to appeal,” explained the Facebook lawyer Anna Benckert.

“For example, under ICO’s theory people should not be allowed to forward an email or message without having agreement from each person on the original thread. These are things done by millions of people every day on services across the internet.”

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Cambridge Analytica, Facebook)

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