Privacy watchdogs are accusing Facebook Inc. (FB.O) of “serious contraventions of Canadian privacy laws” in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
In a joint report released Thursday, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia said the Menlo Park, California-based technology giant didn’t obtain proper consent from users to disclose their personal data, didn’t have adequate safeguards to protect that data and didn’t take proper responsibility for the information under its control.
“Facebook’s refusal to act responsibly is deeply troubling given the vast amount of sensitive personal information users have entrusted to this company,” Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien said in a news release. “Their privacy framework was empty, and their vague terms were so elastic that they were not meaningful for privacy protection.”
Therrien’s office plans to take the matter to Federal Court to “seek an order to force the company to correct its privacy practices,” according to the release. The privacy watchdogs will hold a news conference later Thursday in Ottawa to detail their findings.
On Wednesday, Facebook said it had set aside US$3 billion in anticipation of a possible fine from consumer protection regulators in the U.S., who are investigating the company for potentially breaching rules on how it was supposed to handle user information.
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