Facebook is in hot water again after Canadian watchdog finds last year's Cambridge Analytica data-harvesting scandal broke privacy laws
- Privacy Commissioner today released results of investigation opened a year ago
- Follows scandal with now-defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica
- Iinvestigation revealed there was an 'overall lack of responsibility' with data
Facebook Inc broke Canadian privacy laws when it collected the information of some 600,000 citizens, a top watchdog said on Thursday, pledging to seek a court order to force the social media giant to change its practices.
Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien made his comments while releasing the results of an investigation, opened a year ago, into a data sharing scandal involving Facebook and the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
Though Facebook has acknowledged a 'major breach of trust' in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the company disputed the results of the Canadian probe, Therrien said.
'Facebook's refusal to act responsibly is deeply troubling given the vast amount of sensitive personal information users have entrusted to this company,' said Therrien.
Facebook Inc broke Canadian privacy laws when it collected the information of some 600,000 citizens, a top watchdog said on Thursday, pledging to seek a court order to force the social media giant to change its practices
Specifically, the company refused to voluntarily submit to audits of its privacy policies and practices over the next five years, he said.
'The stark contradiction between Facebook's public promises to mend its ways on privacy and its refusal to address the serious problems we've identified - or even acknowledge that it broke the law - is extremely concerning,' he added.
Facebook was not immediately available for comment.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner does not have the power to levy financial penalties, but it can seek court orders to force an entity to follow its recommendations.
It could take a year to obtain a court order, Therrien said.
The investigation revealed there was an 'overall lack of responsibility' with people's personal information that means 'there is a high risk that' their data 'could be used in ways that they do not know or suspect, exposing them to potential harms.'
Share this article
Apart from privacy violations by Facebook, the investigation also highlighted problems with regulating social media.
Facebook's rejection of the watchdog's recommendations revealed 'critical weaknesses' in the current legislation, Therrien added, urging lawmakers to give his office more sanctioning power.
'We should not count on all companies to act responsibility and therefore a new law should ensure a third party, a regulator, holds companies responsible,' Therrien said.
Canadian Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould, who this month said the government might have to regulate Facebook and other social media companies unless they did more to help combat foreign meddling in this October's election, will react later on Thursday, a spokeswoman said.
Facebook said on Wednesday it had set aside $3 billion to cover a settlement with U.S. regulators probing revelations that the company had inappropriately shared information belonging to 87 million of its users with Cambridge Analytica.
FACEBOOK'S PRIVACY DISASTERS
December 2018: Facebook comes under fire after a bombshell report discovered the firm allowed over 150 companies, including Netflix, Spotify and Bing, to access unprecedented amounts of user data, such as private messages.
Some of these 'partners' had the ability to read, write, and delete Facebook users' private messages and to see all participants on a thread.
It also allowed Microsoft's search engine, known as Bing, to see the name of all Facebook users' friends without their consent.
Amazon was allowed to obtain users' names and contact information through their friends, and Yahoo could view streams of friends' posts.
As of last year, Sony, Microsoft, and Amazon could all obtain users' email addresses through their friends.
September 2018: Facebook disclosed that it had been hit by its worst ever data breach, affecting 50 million users - including those of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.
Attackers exploited the site's 'View As' feature, which lets people see what their profiles look like to other users.
Facebook says it has found no evidence 'so far' that hackers broke into third-party apps after a data breach exposed 50 million users (stock image)
The unknown attackers took advantage of a feature in the code called 'Access Tokens,' to take over people's accounts, potentially giving hackers access to private messages, photos and posts - although Facebook said there was no evidence that had been done.
The hackers also tried to harvest people's private information, including name, sex and hometown, from Facebook's systems.
Facebook said it doesn't yet know if information from the affected accounts has been misused or accessed, and is working with the FBI to conduct further investigations.
However, Mark Zuckerberg assured users that passwords and credit card information was not accessed.
As a result of the breach, the firm logged roughly 90 million people out of their accounts earlier today as a security measure.
March 2018: Facebook made headlines earlier this year after the data of 87 million users was improperly accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy.
The disclosure has prompted government inquiries into the company's privacy practices across the world, and fueled a '#deleteFacebook' movement among consumers.
Communications firm Cambridge Analytica had offices in London, New York, Washington, as well as Brazil and Malaysia.
The company boasts it can 'find your voters and move them to action' through data-driven campaigns and a team that includes data scientists and behavioural psychologists.
'Within the United States alone, we have played a pivotal role in winning presidential races as well as congressional and state elections,' with data on more than 230 million American voters, Cambridge Analytica claims on its website.
The company profited from a feature that meant apps could ask for permission to access your own data as well as the data of all your Facebook friends.
The data firm suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix (pictured), after recordings emerged of him making a series of controversial claims, including boasts that Cambridge Analytica had a pivotal role in the election of Donald Trump
This meant the company was able to mine the information of 87 million Facebook users even though just 270,000 people gave them permission to do so.
This was designed to help them create software that can predict and influence voters' choices at the ballot box.
The data firm suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix, after recordings emerged of him making a series of controversial claims, including boasts that Cambridge Analytica had a pivotal role in the election of Donald Trump.
This information is said to have been used to help the Brexit campaign in the UK.
It has also suffered several previous issues.
In 2013, Facebook disclosed a software flaw that exposed 6 million users' phone numbers and email addresses to unauthorized viewers for a year, while a technical glitch in 2008 revealed confidential birth-dates on 80 million Facebook users' profiles.
Things really DO look better in the morning: A good night's sleep helps you forget and move on from any embarrassing moments you had the night before, scientists find
