After Facebook hearings, users want to know: who's protecting my data?

"Who’s going to protect us from Facebook?" asked Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL) at a House Commerce Committee hearing April 11. There's currently very little recourse for Facebook users whose privacy was breached by the Cambridge Analytica leak, says Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "The reason we need privacy laws is precisely because individuals lose control over their personal information when it is transferred to a business," Rotenberg said. "Privacy laws help ensure personal data is used only for its intended purpose."

Facebook could face major fines if the Federal Trade Commission finds that the Cambridge Analytica leak violates the terms of the privacy settlement it reached with the company in 2012. Lawsuits that consumers can join have been filed. And consumers can adjust their privacy settings to restrict how much of their information can be used for targeted marketing, says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the privacy watchdog group Center for Digital Democracy. "That won’t totally stop the data mining and profiling that Facebook does but will make it more difficult for it to take advantage of you," Chester said.