Facebook to be fined £500K by UK's ICO

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) plans to fine Facebook £500,000 as part of the office's investigation into the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal.

In an interim report (PDF) covering the ICO's investigation, the agency said it plans to fine Facebook for lack of transparency and security issues relating to the harvesting of data in breach of the UK's Data Protection Act.

The ICO also plans to conduct an audit of the Cambridge University Psychometric Centre.

One of the centre's researchers, Dr Aleksandr Kogan, is alleged to have harvested data from up to 87 million Facebook users and passed it on to political consultancy company Cambridge Analytica.

The ICO investigation found that Facebook had failed in its obligation to protect users' personal information, and to be transparent about how that information was collected and used by third parties.

The office has given Facebook the opportunity to respond to a notice of intent to issue the fine with any representations before making its final decision.

In addition, the ICO has sent warning letters to 11 political parties demanding that they comply with data protection obligations and compelling them to agree to audits of their data protection practices.

The report and others published by the ICO also more broadly examine the potential threat to democracy associated with the rise of fake news and the abuse of personal information for targeted political advertising.

The ICO has laid out a series of recommendations arising from the investigation, including the introduction of a statutory code of practice covering the use of personal data in political campaigns and the requirement for third-party audits to ensure that personal data help by a referendum campaign is deleted after the referendum.

Facebook is also facing potential financial penalties in Australia as a result of the class action being pursued against the company by law firm IMF Bentham.

Image credit: ©Serg Nvns/Dollar Photo Club

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