The US Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation into whether Facebook violated an agreement on privacy terms with the FTC in the way it handled the Cambridge Analytica case, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
Under the 2011 settlement, Facebook agreed to get user consent for certain changes to privacy settings as part of a settlement of federal charges that it deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. In the Cambridge Analytica case, Facebook user data was collected by a third-party app on the social network, including data on users' 'friends', and passed on to CA without the users' consent in order to be used for election campaigns. The UK's data protection regulator is already investigating Facebook's role in the case, and Facebook started its own investigation into whether CA still holds the data.
An FTC spokeswoman told Bloomberg that the agency is aware of the issues that have been raised, but can’t comment on whether it is investigating. If the FTC finds Facebook violated terms of the consent decree, it has the power to fine the company more than USD 40,000 a day per violation.
Facebook said in a statement it rejected "any suggestion of violation of the consent decree". The company said "privacy and data protections are fundamental to every decision we make".
UK, European parliaments call for Zuckerberg
The company has been called to answer for its role in the CA case in the UK parliament. Damian Collins, chairman of the UK parliamentary select committee investigating 'fake news', said he wrote to Facebook requesting that CEO Mark Zuckerberg appear before the panel and give oral testimony. Representatives from Facebook previously gave evidence to the inquiry in February. However, Facebook has since failed to supply requested supplementary evidence by the deadline of 14 March.
He noted that previous testimony by the company’s executives "underrated the risk" of Facebook user data being used without their consent and had been "misleading" to the committee. "It is now time to hear from a senior Facebook executive with the sufficient authority to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process," the MP said. The committee asked Facebook to respond to the request by 26 March.
Other authorities have also called for answers from Facebook. European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said on Twitter that he also requested the presence of Zuckerberg "to clarify before the representatives of 500 million Europeans that personal data is not being used to manipulate democracy". Vera Jourova, the European justice commissioner, is already in the US for meetings with Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the EU-US Privacy Shield and said she will also hear from the FTC on how its handling the matter.
In addition, Facebook will receive a letter from New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and his counterpart in Massachusetts, General Healy. They announced the start of an investigation into whether Facebook misled consumers about how their data was used.
Facebook is already dealing with the fall-out of the case internally. A spokesman confirmed that the company would be holding a 'town hall' meeting with employees on 20 March, where its deputy general counsel will answer questions.
