Facebook data scandal a wake-up call: ex-Google executive

Facebook failed in its responsibility to its users when Cambridge Analytica tapped its data, according to the former head of legal at Google in Europe.

“Nobody understood what Facebook was doing,” Privacy Compliance Hub co-founder Nigel Jones told Liz Claman during an interview Wednesday on FOX Business. “They didn’t understand what these developers were doing.”

The social media giant banned Cambridge Analytica from its platform after several news outlets reported that the United Kingdom-based data analytics firm misused the personal data of more than 50 million Facebook users.

Issuing new privacy policies won’t fix the data breach problem, and companies in Silicon Valley must help users understand what their potential risks are when it comes to their personal information.

“If people start to understand what’s happening to their personal information, if it’s explained to them simply, then they need to allow people to say yes or no,” Jones said. “They need to build these good privacy dashboards which are easy to understand.”

Privacy Compliance Hub tries to foster a culture of privacy compliance within a global business that is applicable to such U.S. tech giants as Facebook, Google and Twitter.

“Our product, the Privacy Compliance Hub, it just enables these companies whether they are in the U.S. or whether they are in Europe to build, maintain and one of the most important things is demonstrate that they are a compliant company,” Jones said.

Facebook said Wednesday that it is curbing the information that it exchanges with companies that collect and sell consumer data for advertisers.