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• Facebook announced on Friday that it has suspended the data-analytics firms, Cambridge Analytica and Strategic Communication Laboratories from its platform, for its handling of user data.

• "Protecting people's information is at the heart of what we do, and we require the same from people who operate apps on Facebook," a company executive said in a press release.

• President Donald Trump's campaign used Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 election as part of its voter-outreach operation.

• The firm has been been scrutinized amid accusations of misuse and has since become a thread in the ongoing Russia investigation.

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Facebook announced on Friday that Cambridge Analytica, the data-analysis firm that played an important role in Donald Trump's online strategy during the 2016 US election, has been suspended from the social-media platform for mishandling user data.

"Given the public prominence of this organization, we want to take a moment to explain how we came to this decision and why," Facebook VP and deputy general counsel Paul Grewal said in a press release on Friday night.

Grewal noted that another company, Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), was also suspended. By booting the companies from its platform "pending further information," Facebook will no longer allow them to buy ads or manage their pages.

"Protecting people's information is at the heart of what we do, and we require the same from people who operate apps on Facebook,"Grewel said, noting that Facebook had received recent reports of certain rules violations.

According to Grewal's statement, a University of Cambridge professor who had developed a personality prediction app for Facebook users called "thisisyourdigitallife" improperly passed user information to other parties, including Cambridge Analytica and SCL in 2015. Facebook allows some apps to get access to a user's profile and important data that identifies the user's preferences and interests.

Facebook said the professor, Cambridge Analytica, and the other parties involved agreed to destroy all the data at the time. But, Grewel said on Friday, "several days ago, we received reports that, contrary to the certifications we were given, not all data was deleted. We are moving aggressively to determine the accuracy of these claims.

Such information, if misused, can potentially help bad actors target Facebook users with ads and other information. This was apparently the case during the 2016 US presidential election. Trump's campaign hired Cambridge Analytica in June that year to help target ads using voter data gathered from millions of adults in the US.