The U.K.'s data protection watchdog Information Commissioner's Office announced its plan to fine Facebook US$ 644,000 (the maximum amount allowed) for its
lax data privacy policies and failing to ensure that Cambridge Analytica had deleted users' data, a critical red flag that might have prevented the U.K.-based data analytics firm (
now defunct) from manipulating public opinion on behalf of clients around the world. The
report, which was published shortly after midnight Wednesday in the U.K., also intends to initiate criminal action against Cambridge Analytica's parent firm SCL Elections Ltd, in addition to warning Canadian company
Aggregate IQ to stop processing retained data belonging to U.K. citizens and launching an audit of Cambridge University Psychometric Centre, where professor
Aleksandr Kogan works. "New technologies that use data analytics to micro-target people give campaign groups the ability to connect with individual voters. But this cannot be at the expense of transparency, fairness and compliance with the law," Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said.
Update on Oct. 25: ICO has officially
levied a fine of £500,000, the maximum possible fine calculated based on the U.K.'s 1998 Data Protection Act (replaced by GDPR earlier this May), against Facebook for its failure to protect personal information of about 87 million users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal that came to light in March this year.
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