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(LONDON) – Facebook is facing its first financial penalty for allowing the Cambridge Analytica data mining company to delve into the personal data of millions of Facebook users who are unaware.
A British government office investigated the Cambridge Analytica scandal for its intention to fine Facebook 500,000 pounds ($ 663,000) for failing to protect information about this user. The amount is the maximum that the agency, the Information Commissioner's Office, can charge for violation of UK data privacy laws.
The penalty is minimal for Facebook, which generates this amount about every seven minutes. business figure of $ 11.97 billion. But this would be the first tangible punishment for the company's corporate privacy scandal, which tarnished his reputation, temporarily pushed his actions and forced CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress, but who did not had little lasting impact.
funded by wealthy Republican donors, worked for the Trump campaign in 2016 and for a time employed Steve Bannon, CEO of the Trump campaign and later a White House advisor.
Facebook said that the company had illegally accessed personal information users via an academic intermediary, although the company said the number was much lower than that. According to Christopher Wylie, a former data researcher at Cambridge Analytica, a whistleblower, the firm was looking to establish psychographic profiles that it could use to influence the votes of likely individuals
Cambridge Analytica ceased operations in May.
The ICO investigation revealed that Facebook "broke the law by failing to protect people's information" and did not inform its users "of how their information was collected by others. " The decision of the office is not final yet. Facebook will have the opportunity to respond to the findings, after which the bureau will make a final judgment.
Damian Collins, chairman of the media committee of the British Parliament, said Wednesday that the company "should now make the results of their internal"
Facebook's chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, said in a statement that the company was reviewing the OIC report and that it would respond shortly and added: "As we have already said, we should have done more to investigate on Cambridge Analytica and act in 2015. "
Facebook is facing several other investigations, including others in Europe, an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission and, apparently, several others in federal agencies such as the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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