Last October Facebook was fined half a million pounds by the British Information Commissioners Office (ICO). That was the highest fine it could impose at the time. Now it appears that Facebook is appealing against this.
Mark Zuckerberg‘s social network was fined for his role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. After all, Facebook turned out not to have properly protected the data of 87 million users, which enabled the company to collect them. That information was then used to map out voters in the United States. Because the scandal took place before the GDPR came into force, the fine was relatively small. Still, Facebook doesn’t agree.
Appeal
Facebook is appealing against the fine. The company considers that the ICO has no evidence that British users have also been affected by the leak. The fine would not be justified for that reason. This is somewhat remarkable, because when the leak was announced, it seemed that at least one million British users of Facebook had been affected.
Still, Facebook’s lawyer, Anna Benckert, claims opposite the ZDNet site that there is no evidence for it. The ICO’s research was prompted by concerns that data from British users might also have been involved in Cambridge Analytica. But now [the ICO] has confirmed that they have no proof of that.
Because, according to Facebook, the judgment also affects the basic principles of how people are allowed to share information on the internet, it appeals. Under the auspices of the ICO, people should not forward e-mails or messages without the consent of all persons in the mail exchange.
The independent General Regulatory Chamber will look into the appeal. If Facebook does not agree, the case will be brought before the Court of Appeal.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.
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