MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Hamburg Data Protection Authority, which is responsible for overseeing Facebook activities across Germany, has initiated an administrative case against the company in connection with Cambridge Analytica personal data leak scandal, the authority’s head, Johannes Caspar, said Friday.
“We are currently examining a possibility to initiate proceedings against Facebook,” Caspar said, as quoted by the Handelsblatt newspaper.
The US company is suspected of misusing the data of its users, he said, adding that the first step would be a hearing on the accusations.
In March, US media reported that the personal information of about 50 million Facebook users had been harvested without their permission by Cambridge Analytica consultancy, which worked for multiple political campaigns using the data to develop a mechanism that would predict and influence the behavior of voters.
Several countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Canada have already decided to probe Facebook. Earlier in April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided a two-day testimony to the US House of Representatives and Senate on whether his company’s data was used by Cambridge Analytica to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
