AG of District of Columbia Sues Facebook Over Cambridge Analytica Scandal

Facebook has been facing troubles pertaining to data privacy issues for time now. In a latest move, the top most legal officer in the US capital city has put allegations on the social giant Facebook, on account of privacy violations, related to personal data it shared with the Cambridge Analytica consultancy that worked on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. The District of Columbia attorney general’s (AG) lawsuit is probably the first by an official US body that may cause troubles for one of the leading social networks on part of the data misuse. In a statement, Attorney General Karl Racine in a statement said that the Facebook didn’t protect the privacy of its users and befooled them about who all had the access to their data and how exactly it was being used. He added that the social networking site make users vulnerable to manipulation by enabling companies such as Cambridge Analytica and other third-party applications collect the users’ personal data without their permission. The latest lawsuit demands Facebook to promise protection of its users’ privacy. Filed in the DC Superior Court, the lawsuit wants a ban to make sure that Facebook comes up with some protocols and safeguards to monitor the data of its users and to let users take a better control of their privacy settings. The lawsuit also demands restitution for consumers. Facebook hasn’t made any comment on this lawsuit so far. Though, the company has accepted that nearly 87 million users may have had their data stolen by Cambridge Analytica, which wrapped up just a few weeks after the news emerged about its handling of users’ personal information. There was a ‘whistleblower’ at the consultancy, then, who mentioned that the social networking site used Facebook data to create user profiles, who were then sent personalized messages that might have played on their fears. The specific case resulted into a number of investigations and comprehensive review by the social networking website on how it shares users’ personal information with third parties. Apart from the most recent lawsuit, Facebook has also been investigated by the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission. In fact, the company was fined £500,000 in the UK, on the account of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It was the highest fine the British data regulator can levy. This road of troubles for Facebook doesn’t end here, as bigger problems could arise from the Irish data protection regulator, which is probing Facebook for numerous admissions of security errors.