U.S. confirms investigation into Facebook over data privacy scandal

The U.S. Federal Trade Commmission on Monday confirmed that it was investigating Facebook over its privacy practices.
The commission is looking into reports that Facebook failed to honour promises to comply with existing privacy protections, including a data privacy deal between the EU and the U.S. agreed in 2016.
“The FTC is firmly and fully committed to using all of its tools to protect the privacy of consumers,” said Tom Pahl, Acting Director of the FTC, in a statement.
Facebook Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has come under pressure over a data-mining scandal involving the British firm Cambridge Analytica.
Information from about 50 million Facebook users was taken without their consent and used in work Cambridge Analytica did for U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, according to a whistle-blower, who helped set up the company.
Zuckerberg took out full-page ads in Sunday newspapers in the U.S. and Britain to apologise.
“We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it,’’ Zuckerberg said in the apology. “I promise to do better for you.’’
The privacy deal between the EU and the U.S. is known as Privacy Shield.
It replaced an earlier framework that the EU’s top court struck down as insufficient after revelations in 2013 of mass spying by U.S. intelligence authorities.
The deal aims to prevent the indiscriminate collection of Europeans’ private data via the internet.