Facebook fined £500,000 by UK's Information Commissioner
Social networking giant Facebook was fined £0.5m by the UK's Information Commissioner (ICO) on Wednesday for failing to protect user's online data.
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The ICO said that Facebook had breached Britain's data protection rules by allowing users' information to be readily available via a third-party app linked to Cambridge Analytica.
The watchdog also stated that Facebook had not been transparent about how its subscribers' digital information could be used by companies, particularly in relation to political campaigns.
"Facebook has failed to provide the protections required under data protection laws," said Information Comissioner Elizabeth Denham.
She addded that the fine, the largest penalty the ICO can issue, "sends a clear signal that I consider this as a significant issue if you look at the impact of the data breach".
"We're reviewing the report and will respond to the ICO soon," said Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer.
Christopher Littlejohns, EMEA manager at Synopsys, said the punishment fine was a "salutary lesson" to companies operating within the EU.
"The underlying contraventions are considered by regulatory authorities to be on the top end of the scale of violations of data privacy. Should this or a similarly grave issue happen now, fines within the new GDPR regime could easily cost Facebook $100's of millions of dollars of revenue."
The ICO, which launched an investigation into the use of data in political campaigns in 2017, has tasked roughly 40 investigators to find out whether data had been misused in the Brexit referendum.
Denham said that the ICO had already begun criminal prosecution of SCL Elections, another data analytics firm which, like Cambridge Analytica, had filed for bankruptcy earlier in 2018, over claims that it had not handed over evidence related to a potential misuse of data.
Both companies denied any misuse of people's Facebook data to sway either the Brexit referendum, 2016 US presidential election or other campaigns worldwide.
"It's the most important investigation that the ICO has ever undertaken," said Denham.
As of 1200 BST, Facebook shares had slipped 0.58% in pre-market trading to $203.54 each.