PricewaterhouseCoopers cleared Facebook's privacy practices in leak period

Facebook has been under scrutiny from lawmakers across the world since disclosing that the personal information of 87 mn FB users wrongly ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica

Facebook’s privacy practices were cleared by auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in an assessment completed last year of the period in which data analytics consultancy Cambridge Analytica gained access to the personal data of millions of Facebook users. 

Facebook had established and implemented a comprehensive privacy program and its privacy controls were operating with sufficient effectiveness to provide reasonable assurance to protect the privacy of covered information, PwC said in a report submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) dated December 2017 on the FTC website. 

The report was an assessment of the period from February 12, 2015 to February 11, 2017. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported on Thursday on the PwC assessment submitted to the FTC. PwC declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Facebook has been under scrutiny from lawmakers across the world since disclosing that the personal information of 87 million Facebook users wrongly ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, a Britain-based firm hired by Donald Trump for his 2016 US presidential election campaign. “We remain strongly committed to protecting people’s information.

We appreciate the opportunity to answer questions the FTC may have,” Facebook Deputy Chief Privacy Officer Rob Sherman told Reuters Thursday. 

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg appeared for hearings in front of US lawmakers last week and is currently facing pressure from European Union lawmakers to come to Europe and shed light on the data breach involving Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook said on Friday it would roll out a new feature designed to make political advertising more transparent in time for a key German regional election, as it seeks to restore trust after a massive data breach.

The social network has been at the centre of controversy over suspected Russian manipulation of the 2016 US presidential election via its platform, and the leak of personal data of 87 million users to a political consultancy that advised Donald Trump’s team. 

On Friday, a German data privacy regulator said it was opening non-compliance procedures against Facebook in relation to the data leak to the consultancy, Cambridge Analytica, that was exposed a month ago.

Seeking to contain the fallout, Facebook has said it would only allow authorised advertisers to run electoral ads and that these should be clearly labelled.