The FTC had been probing allegations political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained the data of up to 87 million Facebook users. The FTCs Bureau of Consumer Protection began investigating Facebook in March 2018 after it was revealed that personal data was illegally harvested from an online personality quiz and sold to Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics company.
There were subsequent claims the data may have been used to try and influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum.
The USD 5 billion fine is believed to be the biggest ever imposed on any company for violating consumers privacy. Moreover, the social network must establish an independent privacy committee that Facebooks chief executive Mark Zuckerberg will not have control over, according to BBC.
Facebook was also fined GBP 500,000 by the UKs data protection watchdog for its role in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal in October 2018.
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