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Facebook admits it should have informed public earlier about data breach

SINGAPORE — For more than half of Thursday’s (March 22) marathon public hearing before the Select Committee studying online falsehoods, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Facebook’s Asia-Pacific vice-president of public policy Simon Milner went toe to toe over the company’s failure to tell users when it found out about political data firm Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of data in 2015, among other issues.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Facebook’s Asia-Pacific vice-president of public policy Simon Milner went toe to toe over the company’s failure to tell users when it found out about political data firm Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of data in 2015. Photo: Video Screengrab

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Facebook’s Asia-Pacific vice-president of public policy Simon Milner went toe to toe over the company’s failure to tell users when it found out about political data firm Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of data in 2015. Photo: Video Screengrab

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SINGAPORE — For more than half of Thursday’s (March 22) marathon public hearing before the Select Committee studying online falsehoods, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Facebook’s Asia-Pacific vice-president of public policy Simon Milner went toe to toe over the company’s failure to tell users when it found out about political data firm Cambridge Analytica’s misuse of data in 2015, among other issues.

Mr Shanmugam’s questioning of Mr Milner during the hearing, which became testy at times – though interspersed with moments of levity – saw the latter admitting before the committee that Facebook should have informed users earlier of this breach of policies.

Hours before the hearing, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg had apologised for the mistakes his company made in how it handled data belonging to 50 million of its users, and promised tougher steps to restrict developers’ access to such information.

There were allegations by a whistleblower that Cambridge Analytica improperly accessed users’ information to build profiles on American voters that were later used to help elect United States President Donald Trump in 2016. Its researcher Aleksandr Kogan was said to have ran a survey app on Facebook, which saw responses from 300,000 Facebook users. That also gave the researcher access to those people’s Facebook friends as well, who had not agreed to share information, producing details on 50 million users.

Mr Milner said at the hearing: “It definitely looks like a decision where we made a wrong call”.

“We should have let people know. Our CEO has owned that decision and said that we got that wrong,” he added, referring to Mr Zuckerberg’s apology.

He also acknowledged during the hearing that he could have provided a fuller response on the issue when he was quizzed about this earlier by a British select committee inquiry into fake news.

The minister had asked if Mr Milner was being “careful and economical” in his answers to the British committee last month, given Facebook’s knowledge then that a large amount of data had been accessed, in breach of Facebook’s policies.

Mr Milner stated that he had been frank and honest with that committee but conceded that he could have provided a “fuller answer” on hindsight.

“I felt at the time I was giving truthful answers to the questions. This was a minor part of a broader hearing in which we covered lots of other issues. Therefore, of course now with hindsight, especially given recent events, I wish I had said more,” said Mr Milner.

When pressed on why Facebook did not inform the affected users of the serious breach earlier, he said that he was not involved in the decision and did not want to speculate.

Asked by the minister if further steps should have been taken to verify if the data had been deleted when users stopped using the app, Mr Milner said this was something they wished had been done on hindsight.

“That’s one of the lessons for us in terms of why we are now going to audit all other apps and not just take their affirmation for want of a better word that they have deleted data or not passed it on. We will now audit them,” he added.

Calling Facebook’s actions “inexplicable” and “inexcusable”, Mr Shanmugam added: “You do not tell the public about it. You take the words of someone who has already acted in breach with a certification. You do not verify that the data has been deleted and it is contrary to everything you have stated about the importance of protecting data and protecting users’ data.”

During the exchange, the minister repeatedly demanded for “yes or no” answers. But Mr Milner insisted at times that his actual answers were more nuanced.

At one point, Mr Milner asked the committee’s chair Charles Chong if Mr Shanmugam’s line of questioning was appropriate. He asked if this was a fair use of the committee’s time after he was quizzed on the evidence given by his colleague in a different Parliament elsewhere.

Mr Shanmugam stated that these were relevant in deciding whether Mr Milner and Facebook can be trusted to answer questions, be a reliable partner and to tell the authorities the truth.

“To what extent can we take seriously all these protestations that you can be completely trusted to apply your internal guidelines? It’s very relevant,” he said.

But Mr Shanmugam also noted later that the authorities view social media companies as partners. “We do not have the levers that the US Government might have, or a much larger government in Europe might have. But from our perspective we want all of you to succeed, to continue to make money and do well in Singapore,” he said.

“But we do not accept that some characterisations of what you think you can do – when I say we do not accept, some of us may not accept it - and some areas are of concern and we need to explore them very carefully,” he added.

In response to questions raised by Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee on whether Singaporeans had been affected by the privacy breach, Mr Milner said Facebook did not know whether the personal information of Singaporean Facebook users had been inappropriately obtained by Prof Kogan.

He added that Facebook would inform the affected users if the company has further information.

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