Over 300,000 citizen data may be abused, Australia investigates Facebook

According to a theguardian news report on April 5th, after Facebook confirmed that 300,000 Australian user data may be used without authorization, the Australian government said on Thursday that it has launched an investigation process to find out whether Facebook is offended. The country’s privacy protection laws and regulations. Facebook’s local time on Wednesday disclosed that as many as 87 million users, mostly Americans, have been inappropriately shared with the political consultancy Cambridge Analytics, surpassing the media’s previous estimate of 50 million.

Angelene Falk, a privacy commissioner in Australia, said in a statement that “All organizations that are covered by the Privacy Act have obligations in relation to the personal information that they hold. This includes taking reasonable steps to ensure that personal information is held securely, and ensuring that customers are adequately notified about the collection and handling of their personal information.”

A Facebook Australia spokesperson said that the company will “fully cooperate” with the survey and recently updated some of its privacy settings.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the media in a conference call that he was responsible for the data breach.

Next week, Zuckerberg will attend two U.S. congressional hearings. This data leakage portal of Facebook has caused widespread criticism by legislators and regulators around the world.

Cambridge Analysis once provided services for Trump’s 2016 campaign and expressed disagreements with Facebook’s estimated number of affected users. It published a tweet on Wednesday saying it received data from less than 30 million people from a researcher.

The Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand said last week that Facebook has violated the country’s laws and Facebook has expressed disappointment.

Australian antitrust regulators are already investigating Facebook and Google to find out if the two companies have undermined new media and hurt the interests of publishers and consumers.