Facebook Inc’s Cambridge Analytica incident likely was a violation of the company’s 2011 consent decree with the US Federal Trade Commission, which requires it to get users’ consent before sharing their data, according to the agency’s former chief technologist.
Ashkan Soltani, who was at the FTC when it looked into Facebook seven years ago, was asked by a Congressional subcommittee on Tuesday whether Facebook violated the rules, which could result in heavy fines. “It is my opinion that they have,” he told the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation subcomittee.