Watchdog demands Facebook clarification (3)

(ANSA) - Rome, April 24 - Italy's privacy regulator said Tuesday that it has demanded further clarification from Facebook "over the possible violation of personal data of tens of thousands of already-identified Italian users and others who have not yet been identified". The authority released a statement after President Antonello Soro met a delegation from the social-media platform headed by its European privacy chief Yvonne Cunnane, in the wake of alleged privacy breaches involving Cambridge Analytica.
    The statement said the watchdog had demanded full cooperation from Facebook, with details of which political marketing agencies had had access to user data, what technologies were used to get the information, and what efforts were being made to ensure data-protection regulatons are respected.
    "The big companies that operate on the Internet must show that they work with respect for the law and deserve the trust of their users, precisely because of the significant power they exercise and enormous quantities of personal data they handle," Soro said. He added that the authority would impose "heavy penalties" if Facebook fails to fix the privacy issues.