Facebook has been fined 拢500,000 for breaching data protection rules linked to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the UK鈥檚 data watchdog the Information Commissioner鈥檚 Office has confirmed.
The record levy on the social media giant, first announced in July, is for failing to safeguard people鈥檚 information and failing to be transparent about how people鈥檚 data was harvested by others.
The ICO said Facebook security failings allowed the personal data of up to 87 million to be harvested without their knowledge by a company called GSR, with some of the data later shared with SCL Group. This was the parent company of the now defunct Cambridge Analytica, which is at the heart of a probe into the use of data at the 2016 EU referendum.
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鈥淔acebook failed to sufficiently protect the privacy of its users before, during and after the unlawful processing of this data,鈥� said聽Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham. 鈥淎 company of its size and expertise should have known better and it should have done better.鈥�
The fine was issued under the Data Protection Act and is the maximum possible.聽New legislation that聽was passed in May, called the General Data Protection Regulation, will allow future fines to be as much as聽鈧�20 million or 4 per cent of annual worldwide, whichever is greater.
