Facebook fined £500K for ‘serious breaches’ of data protection law

Facebook has been fined half a million pounds by the UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office. The ICO fined Facebook £500,000 ($645,175) for “serious breaches of the data protection law,” per the penalty notice. 

The figure — which is the maximum fine that the ICO is able to impose — is still rather paltry compared to Facebook’s net worth of £445bn. 

An investigation by the ICO revealed that between 2007 and 2014, Facebook “processed the personal information of users unfairly by allowing application developers access to their information without sufficiently clear and informed consent.” Facebook also allowed “access even if users had not downloaded the app but were simply ‘friends’ with people who had.”  Read more…

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