The offices of political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica in London, Britain. ANDY RAIN/EPA THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER’S Office in the UK has announced its intention to fine Facebook more than $600,000 for its “lack of transparency and security issues” related to third party data harvesting. The ICO is also taking steps toward bringing criminal action against SCL Elections, the now-defunct parent company of the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, which harvested the data of millions of Americans without their knowledge before the 2016 election. The announcements come as part of the ICO’s sweeping investigation into data privacy violations, which began in March of 2017; its focus on Facebook heightened one year later, amid a wave of news reports about Cambridge Analytica’s misdeeds.1 The ICO went public with its initial findings on Tuesday, but noted that the investigation is still ongoing. As part of the probe, the ICO’s team of 40 investigators seized the servers of Cambridge Analytica and have undertaken a transatlantic search to determine how data was used both in the Brexit referendum campaign and the United States presidential election. The initial report includes a slew of regulatory actions the ICO plans to take against a variety of key players, from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to major data brokers, political campaigns, and the academic institutions that develop data targeting methodology.via