Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said he will lead a national investigation into the privacy practices of Facebook.
He made the announcement after learning that the personal information of nearly three million Pennsylvanians were compromised.
On Thursday, AG Shapiro said Facebook responded to a letter requesting information regarding its business practices and privacy protections. A bipartisan group of 41 state attorneys general including Shapiro signed the demand letter.
Facebook estimated that it shared the personal data of 2,960,311 Pennsylvanians to Cambridge Analytica and third parties. The social network giant also informed the AGs that the total number of Americans affected by the data scandal was around 70.4 million. That’s lower than its previous estimate of 87 million users.
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“Nearly a quarter of the Commonwealth’s residents – 22 percent – had their personal data compromised by Facebook’s privacy breach,” said AG Shapiro.
In addition, the Pennsylvania AG said, “Social media users don’t expect to have their information given to third party developers without their knowledge. Businesses like Facebook must take significant steps to better protect their users’ privacy and personal data.”
