Italys privacy regulator fined Facebook €1 million Friday for violations connected to the Cambridge Analytica scandal — the largest fine against the social networking giant connected to that case.
The agency said 57 Italians had downloaded a personality test app called ThisIsYourDigitalLife, which was used to collect Facebook information on both themselves and their Facebook friends. The app was then used to provide data to Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm, which used some of the digital information to target voters during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In total, more than 200,000 Italians had their information gathered without their consent through the personality test app out of roughly 87 million Facebook users worldwide who were affected by the data scandal. This transfer of data by Facebook to a third-party fell foul of Italys privacy rules, though the agency stressed the information had not been passed to Cambridge Analytica.
The €1 million fine follows a previous £500,000 sanction by the British privacy watchdog, which similarly found that the tech giant had not sufficiently protected peoples online data. The Italian competition authority also fined Facebook €10 million in December for failing to inform its users how their data would be used by the digital platform.
Because the Cambridge Analytica violations occurred before Europe revamped its privacy laws in May last year, including new powers to issue fines of up to 4 percent of a companys global revenue, the regions data protection authorities have limited scope to levy substantial fines against Facebook in this case.
Earlier this year, Canadian authorities said Facebook
