Facebook fined £500,000 by UK authorities after the Cambridge Analytica scandal

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office fined Facebook with its maximum sanction (€565,000) for its part in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Euractiv reports that this decision was publicly welcomed by EU officials, such as Justice Commissioner Vĕra Jourová. The UK watchdog indicated that Facebook processed users’ data unfairly by allowing applications to access them without clear consent between 2007 and 2014. Though the GDPR provides for greater sanctions, this regulation only entered in to force in 2018, and was thus not applicable.