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Israel investigating Facebook over personal data harvested by Cambridge Analytica

Israel Materials 22 March 2018 21:03 (UTC +04:00)
The Israeli Authority for Protection of Privacy announced Thursday it was launching an administrative probe into Facebook following reports that data from the social media giant was transferred to Cambridge Analytica
Israel investigating Facebook over personal data harvested by Cambridge Analytica

The Israeli Authority for Protection of Privacy announced Thursday it was launching an administrative probe into Facebook following reports that data from the social media giant was transferred to Cambridge Analytica, Haaretz reports.

Cambridge Analytica is under fire for harvesting the private information of millions of Facebook users in order to sway voters. The firm reportedly used various tricks to entrap the rivals of their clients.

The probe will examine "whether personal data of Israeli citizens was illegal used in a way that infringes upon their right to privacy and the provisions of the Israeli Privacy Law," the ministry said in a statement.

On Tuesday, Britain's Channel 4 News published a video which secretly taped executives from the company admitting that they used British and Israeli spies, honey traps and fake news campaignsto help their clients.

The New York Times and The Observer of London reported over the weekend that Cambridge Analytica exploited information from over 50 million Facebook users as it was developing techniques to support 2016's election bid. The newspapers reported that the data breach was one of the largest in the history of Facebook.

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