Former FTC technologist says Facebook violated consent decree

The verified Twitter Inc. page of Cambridge Analytica, displaying their logo and company name, sit on an Apple Inc. iPhone against a backdrop of the Facebook Inc. sign shown on a computer screen in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Thursday, March 22, 2018. Facebook Inc.’s co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg has been called to appear before a House panel as fallout continues from revelations that Cambridge Analytica had siphoned data from some 50 million Facebook users as it built a election-consulting company that boasted it could sway voters in contests all over the world. Photographer: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg

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.