An advertising trade group that gave an award to Cambridge Analytica last year for its “big data” work during the 2016 presidential election is now urging marketers to reconsider the ethics of how consumer information is collected and used.

The trade group, the Advertising Research Foundation, said it was waiting for more information before formally rescinding the award given to Cambridge Analytica, the British political consulting firm that was recently reported to have improperly harvested the data of 50 million Facebook users. The revelations have brought intense criticism of Facebook, which is facing inquiries from lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic around how it handles user information, and have many people taking a closer look at the role of data in online advertising.

"We’ve tended to assume that because you can do something, you should,” Scott McDonald, chief executive of the ad group, said in an interview on Tuesday. He added that advertisers had been more concerned with the accuracy and validity of data they received from technology companies than with asking whether they should be collecting that data and using it to target consumers in the first place.

Mr. McDonald addressed the Cambridge Analytica situation and the need for new guidelines during a speech on Wednesday morning at the group’s annual convention in New York.