The article reports that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is launching an investigation into Facebook's handling of private data in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The investigation aims to determine whether Facebook failed to protect users' privacy and could potentially result in heavy fines for the social media company.
The data breach involved the personal information of 50 million Facebook users being obtained by Cambridge Analytica, which allegedly used it to aid Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016. Former FTC officials suggest that fines for each violation of the consent decree, which requires Facebook to notify users and obtain their permission before sharing data, could amount to trillions of dollars if the data of 50 million users was indeed compromised. Facebook has faced criticism for allowing the data breach to occur and has made changes to its user consent rules to prevent similar incidents.
In addition to the FTC investigation, Facebook is also facing probes from UK data protection regulators and the European Commission. The article mentions that a bipartisan group of attorneys general representing 37 US states has written a joint letter to Facebook, demanding answers regarding the breach.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apologized in newspaper ads, admitting that the company could have done more to prevent the data breach. In a separate development, the chairman of a US Senate committee has invited Zuckerberg to testify at a hearing regarding the protection and monitoring of consumer data, along with representatives from Twitter and Google.
The US Federal Trade Commission will investigate Facebook over how private data on millions of users was given to Cambridge Analytica.
The social network has been criticised for letting the analysis firm scoop up data on 50 million users.
The information is believed to have been used to help Donald Trump's 2016
campaign for US president.
The FTC said its probe would determine whether Facebook had
"failed" to protect users' privacy.
Tom Pahl, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said it took the reports about user data going astray "very seriously".
He said the FTC regularly took "enforcement action" against
firms that caused substantial injury to consumers by breaking laws that govern
how personal information should be kept safe.
Facebook is required by law to notify users and get their permission
before data is shared beyond their preferred privacy settings in what is known
as the "consent decree".