Sharing users’ data with political consulting firm: Facebook fined Rs795 bn by US regulator

WASHINGTON: United States regulators have approved a record $5bn (Rs795 billion) fine on Facebook to settle an investigation into data privacy violations, reports international media.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been investigating allegations that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained the data of up to 87 million Facebook users. The New York Times reported that the Democrats wanted stricter limits on the firm, while other Democrats have criticised the fine as inadequate. "With the FTC either unable or unwilling to put in place reasonable guardrails to ensure that user privacy and data are protected, it's time for Congress to act," US Senator Mark Warner said.

The fine still needs to be finalised by the Justice Department's civil division, and it is unclear how long this may take, the sources said. If confirmed, it would be the largest fine ever levied by the FTC on a tech company. Cambridge Analytica was a British political consulting firm that had access to the data of millions of users, some of which was allegedly used to psychologically profile US voters and target them with material to help Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The data was acquired via a quiz, which invited users to find out their personality type. As was common with apps and games at that time, it was designed to harvest not only the user data of the person taking part in the quiz, but also the data of their friends.