Austin American-Statesman

Facebook won’t pay users for data case

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Facebook said Thursday it will not compensate users in the scandal over the misuse of their personal data by political consultanc­y Cambridge Analytica.

The company made the statement in a list of written replies to questions by European Union lawmakers.

The answers were promised after testimony earlier this week by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Brussels had left EU lawmakers frustrated about a lack of responses.

Cambridge Analytica used the data of millions of Facebook users to target ads during political campaigns, including allegedly the U.S. presidenti­al vote.

EU lawmakers said that would make Facebook liable for compensati­on toward EU users.

Facebook said the misuse of data was a “breach of trust,” but noted that no bank account or credit card details had been shared. And it said there was no evidence EU user data had been involved.

Facebook has said previously that it first learned of the breach of privacy more than two years ago, but hadn’t mentioned it publicly until when the scandal broke out in March.

The data was originally pulled together by an app, called “This Is Your Digital Life,” created by researcher Aleksandr Kogan.

He paid about 270,000 people to take part in it. Cambridge Analytica later obtained informatio­n from the app for as many as 87 million Facebook users.

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