U.S regulators have declared the former British Political Consulting Firm Cambridge Analytica guilty of collecting Facebook Inc data of their customers for voter profiling and targeting.
Cambridge Analytica used the innocuous-looking app to gather the information of several millions of Facebook Users. This was for political targeting ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, regulators have claimed.
The FCT found out that Cambridge Analytica was involved in a deceptive act relating to its participation in the EU- U.S privacy shield framework. The FTC Opinion confirms the allegations made in an administrative complaint issued in July: “that app users were falsely told the app would not collect users’ names or other identifiable information.”
The regulator voted 5-0 in favour of issuing the final order to the consulting firm which worked with Aleksandr Kogan to obtain data on millions of Facebook Users.
“The Final Order prohibits Cambridge Analytica from making misrepresentations about the extent to which it protects the privacy and confidentiality of personal information, as well as its participation in the EU-US Privacy Shield framework and other similar regulatory or standard-setting organizations,”
“In addition, the company is required to continue to apply Privacy Shield protections to personal information it collected while participating in the program (or to provide other protections authorized by law), or return or delete the information. It also must delete the personal information that it collects through the GSRApp.” The FTC stated.
Facebook also introduced a major new privacy-by-design push following it’s $5 billion record fine by the FCT for allowing Kogan a third-party App to gather Customers private information without consent.