Back in early 2018, Facebook's world came crashing down. Reports emerged accusing the social network of letting people's personal data be misused to manipulate the US presidential elections. Now, the company is paying the price for its negligence.
Images courtesy: Reuters
The Cambridge Analytica scandal, as it's come to be known, was the spark that lit the fire on the privacy discussion. What followed was a barrage of investigations, hearings, and court cases. Now, it looks like the US Federal Trade Commission has formally announced a settlement with Facebook this morning.?
The social network has agreed to pay a $5 billion fine, its second-biggest till date.
The FTC, in the agreement filed today, reiterates that the fine is because Facebook violated the law by failing to protect user data from third parties, by serving ads through the use of phone numbers supposedly provided as a security measure, and for lying to users that its facial recognition software was turned off by default.?
There are also a series of new restrictions on its business that Facebook has to adhere to. It will be required to conduct a privacy review of every single new product or service it develops in the future, each of which will be submitted to the CEO and a third-party assessor every quarter.?
It will also be required to obtain certifications from apps and third-party developers that want to use Facebook user data, verifying the reasons and uses they will put the data to. However, there's still no official limit to what data access the company can give to those app developers after they've disclosed their intentions.
"The Order imposes a privacy regime that includes a new corporate governance structure, with corporate and individual accountability and more rigorous compliance monitoring," the FTC wrote in a statement. "This approach dramatically increases the likelihood that Facebook will be compliant with the Order; if there are any deviations, they likely will be detected and remedied quickly."
"The agreement will require a fundamental shift in the way we approach our work and it will place additional responsibility on people building our products at every level of the company," Facebook said in a blog post. "It will mark a sharper turn toward privacy, on a different scale than anything we've done in the past."