Facebook’s $9M fine a ‘ joke,’ say critics

Settlement in Cambridge Analytica scandal

U. S. tech giant Facebook Inc. will pay $9.5 million but admit no wrongdoing as part of a settlement agreement with the Competition Bureau of Canada over privacy claims the company made in connection to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Reactions to the settlement were quick and withering Tuesday, with politicians and privacy advocates saying that $ 9.5 million is pocket change for the social network, which this week added another former high-ranking political staffer to its public policy team.

“It’s very concerning that the massive data- opolies — and Facebook is a perfect example of this — embed themselves with the major political parties in jurisdictions where they are,” New Democrat innovation critic Charlie Angus told the National Post. “And then they seem to avoid legislation and scrutiny.”

Ann Cavoukian, former information and privacy commissioner for Ontario, was dismayed by the fine, saying that Canadian regulators are well-intentioned but they come up short on the follow-through.

“I would’ve said to the Competition Bureau, what’s the largest fine you could levy? Nine million is nothing to Facebook. Why not levy $1 billion?” Cavoukian said.

The settlement agreement is directly related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which Facebook allowed third-party developers to access private user data.

The Bureau found that the company continued to give developers access to this data years after the company claimed it had halted the practice.

“Facebook did not limit the sharing of users’ personal information with some thirdparty developers in a way that was consistent with the company’s privacy claims,” the Bureau said in a news release.

Cambridge Analytica was accused of obtaining data scraped from Facebook and then using that data to create psychological profiles of users, in an attempt to target ads and influence the 2016 U. S. presidential election, and the U. K. Brexit referendum.

In an emailed statement, a Facebook spokesperson said the company is not admitting that it did anything wrong as part of the settlement agreement.

“Although we do not agree with the Commissioner’s conclusions, we are resolving this matter by entering into a consent agreement and not contesting the conclusions for the purposes of this agreement,” the spokesperson said.

The settlement agreement includes a $ 9- million fine, plus $ 500,000 to cover the Competition Bureau’s legal costs.

The sum pales in comparison to Facebook’s earnings: In the first three months of 2020, Facebook recorded a profit of US$ 4.9 billion, which works out to about US$54 million per day.

In July, Facebook settled with the U. S. Federal Trade Commission for US$ 5 billion for privacy violations to American citizens relating to the Cambridge Analytica affair, and agreed to ongoing changes to the company’s corporate structure that are supposed to prevent something similar from happening again.

“It’s a joke,” Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner said of the Canadian settlement.

“I worry about this incenting more breaches of privacy, because when you think about the value of the data that was in question in this transaction, it’s a helluva lot more than $9 million.”

Since she took over the role as Innovation, Science and Industry critic, Rempel Garner has been pushing for a fundamental rethinking of Canada’s data privacy laws, with the aim of putting more control in the hands of individual citizens. Rempel Garner said the Facebook settlement agreement is a perfect example of why that’s necessary.

“I’m not convinced that the government has the capacity to either regulate or enforce any sort of meaningful privacy framework in Canada,” Rempel Garner said.

“We have to realize that there’s a new industry. Data is an industry, right? The question is, how do individuals participate in that. And to me, the perfect analogy is, we have minimum wage laws in Canada for a reason, because we believe that there is a value to labour that shouldn’t be exploited, and I would say the same thing has to go for data now.”

Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains wasn’t available for an interview, but in an emailed statement he appeared to suggest that the Competition Bureau settlement was a regulatory win.

“Canadians expect and deserve truth from businesses in the digital economy, and claims about privacy are no exception,” Bains said.

Bains also said the government is working on strengthening laws to protect citizens’ data.