Facebook: criminal investigation on data sharing

Federal prosecutors in New York have opened a criminal investigation into Facebook's practices of sharing users' data with other companies, sometimes without the knowledge of its users, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

According to the newspaper, a grand jury in New York officially demanded "at least two major smart phone manufacturers" to provide their information on this topic, which would involve hundreds of millions of users according to the NYT.

Facebook shares or has shared a lot of personal data with outside technology companies, including smartphone manufacturers for example, so that its services are compatible with their operating systems or various applications or sites, through "partnerships" (including many are already no longer active according to Fabebook) signed with these groups.

In particular, the question is whether this has been done in a transparent way for users.

Contacted by AFP, Facebook said it was "known that federal investigations, including by the Department of Justice, were ongoing. As we have said before, we cooperate with investigators and take these investigations seriously. We provided public testimony, answered questions and promised to continue. "

Facebook is in the heat of controversy over the use of users' personal data since the Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal a year ago. Elected officials, regulators and investigators around the world are looking into whether Facebook has in any way hidden the details of its data-sharing practices.

In the United States alone, the trade regulator, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the stock policeman, the SEC, as well as the Department of Justice, are investigating Facebook's data management practices. users. It is also the subject of complaints from US states or shareholders.

The personal data of tens of millions of users had been unwittingly in the hands of the British firm Cambridge Analytica, specializing in data analysis, and who worked in 2016 for the campaign of Republican candidate Donald Trump, who became president of United States.

The social network to the 2.3 billion users risks total civil and criminal prosecution with notably large fines to the key.

Just for the record of the FTC, it could according to the press pay $ 2 billion fine.

The most important smart phone manufacturers are South Korean Samsung, American Apple and Chinese Huawei.

Wednesday evening, Facebook and its various applications (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp) were also the subject of a notable failure of unknown origin for many users in the world for several hours.