The British Information and Data Protection Agency requested permission on Tuesday to search the offices of Cambridge Analytica, which has been accused of illegally obtaining Facebook user data, whose owner Mark Zuckerberg has been summoned before a parliamentary committee.
– “We are seeking permission to search the servers and verify the data as a regulatory body,” explained Elizabeth Denham, who heads the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), an independent agency responsible for overseeing the sector and protecting personal data, on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday.
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The British regulator stated that since March 7, it has requested access from Cambridge Analytica to their files and data but has not received a response. Denham also specified that she requested and achieved from Facebook to halt its own investigation so as not to compromise theirs.
The ICO wants to determine whether there was sufficient consent from Facebook users regarding the sharing of their data with the application.
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The British parliamentary committee on Tuesday requested Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg to appear before them and assessed that his official explanations have consistently underestimated the danger of collecting personal data from users without their consent, which has proven to be incorrect. They expect his statement by Monday.
Prediction and Influence on Voter Voting
On Monday evening, Cambridge Analytica (CA), a company specializing in strategic communication, firmly denied that it collected data on 50 million Facebook users without their consent to use it for developing software that would enable prediction and influence on voter voting.
CA’s leadership has also been accused of intending to corrupt politicians using prostitutes.
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Channel 4 News aired an investigation on Monday in which CA CEO Alexander Nix was filmed with a hidden camera discussing techniques for disabling political opponents.
Data protection authorities in the EU dealt with the Cambridge Analytica affair on Tuesday, related to Donald Trump’s election campaign. This topic was on the agenda of the meeting of these authorities in Brussels, stated the European Commission, whose representative will seek explanations from Facebook in Washington on Tuesday.
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European Parliament President Antonio Tajani announced on Monday that MEPs will thoroughly investigate this unacceptable violation of the right to data confidentiality, revealed by the New York Times and The Observer.
Data protection authorities in EU countries will discuss this topic at a meeting on Tuesday in Brussels, stated the Commission, which wants these bodies to launch an investigation as they have already done in the case of the Uber affair.
