This week, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned for two days by Congress due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which the consulting firm was able to harvest data from 87 million profiles largely without consent during the 2016 US presidential election. As a result, the social media platform’s adherence to data protection laws is currently being considered problematic by many critics, with Zuckerberg apologising for the mistakes with regards to the privacy breaches.
Now, with the EU General Data Protection Regulation, more commonly known as GDPR, set to come into force from 25 May 2018, Euronews questions whether this regulation could have prevented the scandal from taking place at all. This is because, under the GDPR, companies like Facebook must have user’s express consent before they can receive and share personal data, or override their privacy preferences.
Read more from Euronews here.
If you require legal advice on data protection or any other matters, please get in touch with the Jefferies team.