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Oct. 25, 2018 / 9:20 AM GMT
By Associated Press
LONDON — A British watchdog has slapped Facebook with a fine of 500,000 pounds ($644,000) — the maximum possible — for its behavior in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The Information Commissioner’s Office’s investigation found that between 2007 to 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by giving app developers access to their information without informed consent.
The fine was the maximum allowed under the law at the time the breach occurred.
Had the scandal taken place after new E.U. data protection rules went into effect, the amount would have been far higher.
The British firm had worked closely with then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign to target political ads to users during Trump’s 2016 run for president — which ultimately led to an admission by Facebook that data from as many as 87 million users “may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.”