Facebook has informed the European Commission that the data of 2.7 million EU citizens have been affected by the recent data scandal. The company has already revealed the statistics of which countries have been affected so far because of the data scandal.
Privacy is a fundamental right under Europes legal regime therefore the improper sharing of users data is completely illegal.
“Facebook confirmed to us that the data of overall up to 2.7 million Europeans or people in the EU to be more precise may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica . The letter also explains the steps Facebook has taken in response since,” an EC spokesman told News
Facebook is currently being protected by the EU-US Privacy Shield replacing the EU Privacy Law which helps to authorize the transfers of EU users data across the Atlantic.
Companies such as Facebook has opted for the Privacy Shield to escape a few certain privacy principles made by the EU. The FTC has charged the company because of its mischievous actions in relation to users privacy.
Facebook will now need to disclose to the FTC how its actions in 2013-2015 mesh with that earlier consent agreement.
Facebook has admitted that data of 87 Million users might be in the wild because of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal.
“Facebook now has three strikes against it: Beacon, the privacy modifications it made in 2009 to force private user information public, and now the Kogan/Cambridge Analytica revelation,” David Vladeck writes. “Facebook can’t claim to be clueless about how this happened. The FTC consent decree put Facebook on notice. All of Facebooks actions were calculated and deliberate, integral to the company’s business model, and at odds with the companys claims about privacy and its corporate values. So many of the signs of venality are present.”
The users of Facebook must be notified when their data is being sent to a third party and the company should develop some accountability systems which allows the company to take the consent of the user before the data is shared to the third party developers. The company has said that it will be committing to the users privacy above all others and finally honouring the data privacy laws.
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Source: ABCNews, TechCrunch