The federal investigation into Facebook’s sharing of personal data of tens of millions of Americans with a political consultancy firm is expanding, it has been reported.
The expanded probe is being conducted jointly by officials with the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission.
Federal investigators want to know whether Facebook knew about the data breach that affected some 71 million American users as early as three years ago.
The company could be in trouble if it is determined that it knew about the breach at the time and did not inform investors and users, according to The Washington Post.
Investigators are also examining whether Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was truthful in his testimony before Congress earlier this year.
‘We are cooperating with officials in the U.S., UK and beyond. We’ve provided public testimony, answered questions, and pledged to continue our assistance as their work continues,’ a Facebook representative told Reuters.
The federal investigation into Facebook’s sharing of personal data of tens of millions of Americans with a political consultancy firm is expanding, it has been reported. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen above testifying before Congress on April 10
The emphasis has been on what Facebook has reported publicly about its sharing of information with Cambridge Analytica, whether those representations square with the underlying facts and whether Facebook made sufficiently complete and timely disclosures to the public and investors about the matter, The Washington Post report said.
Regulators and authorities in several countries have increased scrutiny of Facebook after it failed to protect the data of some 87 million users that was shared with Cambridge Analytica.
The company was able to mine the information of 87 million Facebook users even though just 270,000 people gave them permission to do so.
This was designed to help them create software that can predict and influence voters’ choices at the ballot box.
Facebook has been widely recognized for the extreme lengths it takes to collect data on its users.
But several recently filed patents show just how widespread those efforts have become, ranging from anticipating your daily routine to predicting when you might die.
What’s more, many of these techniques simply rely on your smartphone’s geolocation data in order to learn more about you and your habits.
In perhaps one of the most shocking filings, Facebook researchers describe the ability to ‘predict a life change event’ for users, such as marriage status, birthdays, new jobs, a birth in the family, graduation, or even death.
In its latest privacy related gaffe, Facebook said on Monday that more than 800,000 users may have been affected by a bug that unblocked people they previously had blocked.
The company said Monday that the bug was active between May 29 and June 5,and said it has emailed all of the affected users.
While the person who was unblocked by this bug could not see content users shared with their friends, they could have seen things that were posted to a wider audience.
Facebook says the problem has been fixed.
‘We know that the ability to block someone is important – and we’d like to apologize and explain what happened,’ Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, said.
It’s the second software bug in less than a month that the company has notified users about.
In June, Facebook disclosed that a software bug led some users to post publicly by default regardless of their previous settings.
That bug affected as many as 14 million users over several days in May.