Facebook Faces Record $3 Billion Privacy Fine; Senate Commerce Efforts Continue for Privacy Bill

News about a new federal privacy law and government investigations into Facebook continue to drive an important segment of the conversation around privacy.

The latest from the Senate Commerce Committee, which has been working on a bipartisan draft bill, is that Senator John Thune (R-SD and majority whip) and Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash and ranking member of the Commerce Committee) have joined the efforts. There was a closed-door meeting this week but it seems like from the media coverage that they are still in the early stages trying to reach a consensus on some of the details of the legislation so that it can move forward. The meeting happened the day before the Committee’s hearing with consumer privacy advocates.

Even if a deal is reached in the Senate, there is no guarantee that it will be able to garner enough votes in the House of Representative, as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said earlier in April that the California Reps. will not allow the federal government to pass a law that weakens the California Consumer Privacy Act. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has also defended the California privacy law against federal preemption, saying this week according to an article in TheHill that preemption “would be a hostile attack on consumers who are trying to protect their privacy.”

For those closely following the fallout from Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal and other privacy breaches, the last few weeks have seen a number of different items leak to the media or been announced.

Facebook disclosed in its financial filings with the SEC in April that it expects the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settlement will reach at least $3 billion. The expected range of the settlement that is being reported in the media is $3-5 billion.

In other news on the possible settlement between Facebook and the FTC, it could include the creation of an independent privacy oversight committee as well as the appointment of a privacy compliance executive at the social network that is approved by the federal government. The oversight committee would meet quarterly and issue reports on Facebook’s privacy practices. The steps to improve compliance and monitoring are in addition to the expected record-setting fine.

FTC Chair Joseph Simons was at the IAPP Global Privacy Summit in Washington, DC this week and although he would not address the potential Facebook enforcement did say that the FTC is looking at higher penalties for privacy violations and that we should expect to see more records coming down the road.

In addition to the coverage of the Facebook settlement negotiations, there has been quite a few discussions of other government investigations into Facebook:

The Ireland data protection authority announced an investigation into the recent news that Facebook stored hundreds of millions of unencrypted passwords on its servers.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia released the results of their investigation into the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal. The report criticized Facebook for failing to make a number of suggested improvements.

The media also reported that the New York Attorney General is going to open an investigation into the unauthorized collection of user email addresses.

The news about these three government investigations came out before Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference and spoke about the new privacy direction of the social network.

In light of the Facebook news as well as the possibility of record/enhanced fines from the FTC, businesses definitely need to be taking into account the changing landscape on enforcement and penalties as they craft their privacy compliance efforts.

Other Relevant Posts:

Facebook Faces Record $3 Billion Privacy Fine; Senate Commerce Efforts Continue for Privacy Bill
Vendor Privacy Issues at Facebook Again – Organizations Must Be Enhancing Vendor Management
Facebook’s Criminal Case Has Big Implications for Privacy
Expect More Big Changes as Privacy Hits Reputation of Tech Companies and Facebook Pledges Privacy-Focused Platform
Considering Facebook: Implications of a Billion Dollar Privacy Fine from the FTC
German Antitrust Regulator: Facebook Violates GDPR

More Resources:

Read the resources Clarip has posted on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and contact us to see a demo of the Clarip privacy management platform used by Fortune 500 clients.