LONDON — British regulators slapped Facebook on Thursday with a fine of 500,000 pounds ($644,000) — the maximum possible — for failing to protect the privacy of its users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. “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. News that the consultancy had used data from tens of millions of Facebook accounts to profile voters ignited a global scandal on data rights. The data rules are tougher than the ones in the United States, and a debate is ongoing on how the U.S. should respond. 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.

Source: National Post October 25, 2018 08:43 UTC