Facebook has been fined $5 billion (about Sh500 billion) by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
In addition, Facebook, as part of the settlement, must adopt new protections for data users share on the social network as well as create an independent privacy committee.
All their social network, including WhatsApp and Instagram, will also be bound by new reporting rules on disclosing privacy breaches to authorities.
If personal information for more than 500 users is leaked, Facebook will have 30 days to notify the FTC.
The commission had been investigating Facebook since March 2018 after allegations were made that political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained the data of up to 87 million Facebook users.
The investigation focused on whether Facebook had violated a 2011 agreement under which it was required to clearly notify users and gain express consent to share their data.
Cambridge Analytica played a dominant role in the campaigns of President Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2013 and 2017 general elections.
Mark Turnbull, then Managing Director of Cambridge Analytica Political Global, was quoted by CNBC saying they “rebranded the entire (Jubilee) party twice, wrote their manifesto, done two rounds of 50,000 (participant) surveys,”
“Then we’d write all the speeches and we’d stage the whole thing so just about every element of his campaign,” Turnbull added.
