LITTLE REGULATOR AT HEART OF TECH GIANT’S BIG FIGHT

A little-known UK regulator is taking Silicon Valley head-on, finding itself at the heart of a scandal that has shaken governments and caused Facebook’s shares to plummet.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) may get a warrant as early as Wednesday to search Cambridge Analytica — the British firm at the centre of a dispute over the misuse of Facebook users’ data — after the company failed to respond to an access request.

Now the data-protection watchdog is facing down the company linked to ex-US presidential advisor Stephen K Bannon and major Republican donor Robert Mercer as public outrage over the use of internet data is growing. UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham will be under pressure to act, but has limited means to do so, with the current fine capped at £500,000 ($700,000). Still, she can use her bully pulpit to order improvements to data protection, and prosecute companies that fail to meet the standards. UK politicians want to give the ICO more authority.

“Historically, the ICO hasn’t had a lot of power,” Vanessa Barnett, a solicitor at Keystone Law in London, said in an interview. “It’s a matter for Elizabeth Denham now, so we’ll wait and see her next move with anticipation.” Denham oversees the several hundred employees of the ICO from its headquarters in Wilmslow — a leafy commuter town outside the old mill city of Manchester in the north of England.

The watchdog is taking the lead of the European probe into what went wrong with Cambridge Analytica, which was accused by London’s Observer newspaper of taking data of more than 50 million Facebook users as part of a plan to develop ways to predict voter behaviour. The agency can prosecute those who commit criminal offenses under the UK’s Data Protection Act.

Denham said Monday that the Cambridge Analytica breach started a “a complex and far-reaching investigation for my office.”