Watchdogs to probe data abuse
European Union authorities vowed to use all measures to investigate allegations that information on millions of Facebook’s users was scooped up without their consent.
EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said authorities will investigate “what exactly happened and who should be blamed” in the wake of allegations that UK-based Cambridge Analytica kept information about tens of millions of the social network’s users that helped Donald Trump win the 2016 election. Leaders from around the 28nation bloc will likely discuss the scandal at a regularly scheduled summit on Thursday, an EU official said.
“Facebook should have been much more careful,” Jourova told CNN on Tuesday. The EU “is known for imposing quite drastic sanctions in such cases, and we will not hesitate to use this power.”
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been urged to come answer questions by European Parliament head Antonio Tajani and Damian Collins, head of a UK
parliament committee investigating the impact of social media on recent elections, over a “catastrophic failure of process.” EU privacy watchdogs on Wednesday vowed to collaborate in getting to the bottom of the “very serious allegation with far-reaching consequences.”
Regulators are examining whether data on millions of Facebook users was illegally held by Cambridge Analytica after it was obtained from a researcher who shared the data without the social network’s permission. According to published news reports, Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan created a personality-analysis app that was used by 270,000 Facebook users, who in turn gave the app permission to access data on themselves and their friends, ultimately exposing a network of 50 million.
“If it’s really the case that the personal data of 50 million users were tapped and used for political means, this is not acceptable,” Ulrike Demmer, a deputy German government spokeswoman, said a news conference in Berlin.
The UK’s data watchdog is taking the lead in the European investigations of locally-based Cambridge Analytica. British Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham is seeking a warrant to search the firm, a process her office said they’re hoping to complete Wednesday.