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Facebook has reportedly agreed to pay $9.5 million to settle allegations by Canada’s Competition Bureau that it had misled Facebook users about third party access to their data.
This Facebook settlement will put an end to an investigation into claims the U.K.-based political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica harvested data from 87 million Facebook users. The investigation found that Facebook made false or misleading claims about Canadian users’ privacy of their personal data on Facebook and Facebook Messenger.
Canada’s Competition Bureau looked into allegations that Facebook let third-party app developers access and harvest users’ personal data between August 2012 and June 2018 in ways that Facebook users would not expect. Some third-party app developers were reportedly able to harvest personal information from Facebook users’ friends, even if the friends hadn’t signed up for Facebook.
In 2018, Facebook acknowledged that Cambridge Analytica had improperly harvested the personal data of 87 million Facebook users through a quiz app. The personal data of more than 620,000 Canadians was reportedly harvested by the political consulting firm.
Academic researcher Aleksandr Kogan created the app, which invited users to answer a series of questions in order to learn their “personality type.”
According to Facebook, around 270,000 people downloaded the quiz app. However, the social media giant’s privacy settings allowed app developers to harvest data from not only those who downloaded the quiz app, but also from their Facebook friends who had never used the app. Millions of Facebook users were reportedly subjected to this data harvesting, which included information about where they lived and the pages or content they “liked” on Facebook.
Cambridge Analytica, which reportedly consulted on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, became caught up in an international scandal after it was revealed that it had used its vast trove of data to put together detailed psychological profiles on voters.
The Competition Bureau said its investigation found that Facebook may have been in violation of Canada’s Competition Act, which prohibits companies from “making false or misleading claims about a product or service to promote their business interests.”
Facebook gave users the false impression that its privacy settings allowed users to control who could see and access their personal information, according to the Competition Bureau.
Facebook allegedly claimed that it wouldn’t allow third-party access to the personal information of Facebook users’ friends after April 30, 2015, but nevertheless the social media giant allegedly continued the practice until 2018 with some third-party app developers.
“Advances in technology are allowing firms to collect large amounts of data from consumers,” the Competition Bureau said in a news release. “Whether or not their products or services are free, firms must ensure that their claims about the collection and use of data are not false or misleading.”
Competition Bureau commissioner Matthew Boswell said in a statement that Canadians deserve to know the truth about how businesses protect their privacy in the digital economy.
“The Competition Bureau will not hesitate to crack down on any business that makes false or misleading claims to Canadians about how they use personal data, whether they are multinational corporations like Facebook or smaller companies,” Boswell said.
Facebook says that it does not agree with the Competition Bureau’s findings but agreed to pay the fine and sign a consent decree to put an end to the claims.
The social media giant is also prohibited from making false or misleading statements about users’ privacy in the future.
Last month, Facebook reportedly filed a lawsuit in Federal Court of Canada seeking to overturn the federal privacy commissioner’s determination that Facebook’s lenient privacy practices allowed users’ personal data to be harvested for political reasons.
This Facebook lawsuit is separate from the $9.5 million settlement over the Competition Bureau’s findings.
Although the $9.5 million Facebook settlement in Canada is substantial, it is far less than the U.S. $5 billion settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over allegations related to the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal. Critics of the U.S. Facebook settlement have noted that the deal provided a liability shield for the social media giant’s past behavior and did not mandate the company to make significant structural changes to its business model, which would have gone further to deter future misconduct.
What do you think about this Facebook privacy settlement? Should there be more done to deter future misconduct? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below!
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16 thoughts onFacebook Reaches $9.5M Settlement Over Canada Privacy Probe
Where’s the money for the end users that were effected by this privacy breach. also where is the fines for identifying children under 18, my daughter had her private information on facebook, when she was 13, I as a website owner could face a steep fine for even asking for that information. facebook walked right in to the internet and did what any other website would have been fined out of existence for doing. Our government had the laws in place before 2000. So when I could not do that. They did like the Pied Piper,
and are still doing it.
Is it too late to add my name to the list?
I have had Facebook since 2007and deff downloaded that app mention. Where do I put my name for compensation?
Add me please I use Facebook
Add me please I use Facebook
Where do we put in a claim for our funds ?