Polish watchdog in EU talks amid data scandal
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
10.04.2018 13:18
Poland’s data watchdog is set to talk with other EU data protection authorities on Tuesday after nearly 60,000 people in Poland had their personal data shared in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
The Facebook logo on the social media giant's headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Photo: Steven Walling/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Spokeswoman Agnieszka Świątek-Druś said Poland's Inspector General for the Protection of Personal Data (GIODO) would decide what steps would be taken in Poland after the talks, Poland's PAP news agency reported.
The personal data of more than 87 million users worldwide – including 2.7 million European Union nationals and 57,138 people in Poland – may have been harvested by UK-based firm Cambridge Analytica, Facebook said, according to EU-based news website Euractive.
PAP reported that 23 people from Poland installed an application allowing Cambridge Analytica to scoop up their data. A further 57,115 people, linked to those 23 as friends on Facebook, were also affected.
Cambridge Analytica used the data to profile Facebook users and worked for both Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Leave campaign in Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, Euractiv said, citing a whistleblower.
European Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said the scandal was “a threat to our democracy and electoral processes”.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Cambridge Analytica had broken Facebook’s terms and conditions, Euractiv said, adding that the analytics firm denied this claim.
Facebook has since announced that it would shut down a feature that allows companies to collect user data in order to target them with advertising and other information, according to Euractiv.
“I appreciate that they are trying to be more transparent,” Jourova said.
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is expected to face US Congress on Tuesday in relation to the scandal. (vb)
Source: PAP, Euractiv