Data mining of 1.18 million Filipino Facebook users under scrutiny
The National Privacy Commission of the Philippines is investigating an alleged data breach involving UK data mining firm Cambridge Analytica which is suspected of having harvested personal details of 1.18 million Facebook users from the Philippines.
The commission has asked the social media giant to relay information regarding the accounts that may have been affected and whether there occurred unauthorised processing of personal data of Filipinos. The probe would also look into possible violations of the Data Privacy Act of 2012, the commission’s head Raymund Liboro said in a letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg dated April 11.
The move followed an admission by Zuckerberg before the US Congress that Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy hired by the Trump campaign, to siphon the information of at least 87 million Facebook users and use it to target political messages. Outside of the US, the Philippines was the source of the most amount of Facebook data collected by Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer conceded that data of 1,175,870 Filipino users “may have been improperly shared” with Cambridge Analytica.
The privacy commission also requested for more information on Facebook’s data sharing with third parties, as well as contracts entered into with these entities.
More than 67 million Filipinos are active Facebook users. There have been reports that the team of President Rodrigo Duterte used Facebook as a tool to influence voters in the 2016 elections with the help of data mining techniques, but this was rigorously denied by Duterte himself.
The National Privacy Commission of the Philippines is investigating an alleged data breach involving UK data mining firm Cambridge Analytica which is suspected of having harvested personal details of 1.18 million Facebook users from the Philippines. The commission has asked the social media giant to relay information regarding the accounts that may have been affected and whether there occurred unauthorised processing of personal data of Filipinos. The probe would also look into possible violations of the Data Privacy Act of 2012, the commission's head Raymund Liboro said in a letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg dated April 11....
The National Privacy Commission of the Philippines is investigating an alleged data breach involving UK data mining firm Cambridge Analytica which is suspected of having harvested personal details of 1.18 million Facebook users from the Philippines.
The commission has asked the social media giant to relay information regarding the accounts that may have been affected and whether there occurred unauthorised processing of personal data of Filipinos. The probe would also look into possible violations of the Data Privacy Act of 2012, the commission’s head Raymund Liboro said in a letter to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg dated April 11.
The move followed an admission by Zuckerberg before the US Congress that Facebook allowed Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy hired by the Trump campaign, to siphon the information of at least 87 million Facebook users and use it to target political messages. Outside of the US, the Philippines was the source of the most amount of Facebook data collected by Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer conceded that data of 1,175,870 Filipino users “may have been improperly shared” with Cambridge Analytica.
The privacy commission also requested for more information on Facebook’s data sharing with third parties, as well as contracts entered into with these entities.
More than 67 million Filipinos are active Facebook users. There have been reports that the team of President Rodrigo Duterte used Facebook as a tool to influence voters in the 2016 elections with the help of data mining techniques, but this was rigorously denied by Duterte himself.
