Facebook will be fined £500,000 – the maximum amount possible – for two breaches of the UK’s Data Protection Act 1998 in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

But under new European legislation, the fine could have been as high as £1.2 billion.

Carole Cadwalladr, the investigative journalist who revealed how the personal data of millions of Facebook users was used to influence the US election, speaks about what went on behind the headlines.

Cambridge Analytica, the shady firm at the centre of the recent Facebook data scandal, is shutting down.

But is it simply going to resurrect itself with a new name?

It’s not fair to describe what happened at Facebook and Cambridge Analytica as a data breach – it’s much worse than that. An autonomous Uber vehicle kills a pedestrian. And sextortion continues to be a serious problem.

All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by computer security veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault, who are joined this week by researcher Scott Helme.

It’s not fair to describe what happened at Facebook as a data breach.

It’s much worse than that.

Cambridge Analytica is widely credited for helping Donald Trump’s successful campaign on social media to be elected President of the United States.

But now it has been suspended from Facebook, following claims that it gathered the profiles of some 50 million users without their knowledge.