Facebook appeals against Cambridge Analytica fine

Facebook has appealed against a fine imposed on it by the UK’s data watchdog after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The social network says that because the regulator found no evidence that UK users’ personal data had been shared inappropriately, the £500,000 penalty was unjustified.
Last month, the watchdog said Facebook’s failure to make suitable checks on apps and developers amounted to a “serious breach of the law”.
It has acknowledged the appeal.
This was the last day on which the US firm could challenge the Information Commissioner’s ruling.
The affair stems from the discovery that an academic at the University of Cambridge – Dr Aleksandr Kogan – used a personality quiz to harvest up to 87 million Facebook users’ details.
Some of this was subsequently shared with the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which used it to target political advertising in the US.
It was initially reported that about 1.1 million UK-based users had had their details exposed.
But Cambridge Analytica said it had only ever licensed data belonging to about 30 million people, and a probe by the Information Commissioner’s Office found no evidence that UK citizens were among them.