U.K. fines Facebook in data privacy scandal

LONDON — British regulators slapped Facebook on Thursday with a fine of 500,000 pounds, equal to $644,000 — the maximum possible — for failing to protect the privacy of its users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

At the same time, European Union lawmakers demanded an audit of Facebook to better understand how it handles information, reinforcing how regulators in the region are taking a tougher stance on data privacy compared with U.S. authorities.

Britain’s Information Commissioner Office found that from 2007 to 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by giving app developers access to their information without informed consent. The failings meant the data of some 87 million people was used without their knowledge.

“Facebook failed to sufficiently protect the privacy of its users before, during and after the unlawful processing of this data,” said Elizabeth Denham, the information commissioner. “A company of its size and expertise should have known better and it should have done better.”

The ICO said a subset of the data was later shared with other organizations, including SCL Group, the parent company of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which counted President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign among its clients. News that the consultancy had used Facebook accounts to profile voters ignited a global scandal on data rights.

Had the scandal taken place after new EU data protection rules went into effect this year, Thursday’s fine would have been at least $1.6 billion.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video message to a big data privacy conference in Brussels this week that “we have a lot more work to do” to safeguard personal data.