Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

On March 17, 2018, The Guardian published a story that 50 million Facebook profiles were harvested by Cambridge Analytica — without their permission — and used those profiles to build a powerful software program to influence the U.S. 2016 presidential election. Later the number of Facebook profiles harvested was increased to as many as 87 million. On March 20, 2018, Channel 4, a UK public service broadcaster, exposed Cambridge Analytica's chief executive Alexander Nix and other executives through a secretly recorded video claiming, “We did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting, we ran all the digital campaign, the television campaign and our data informed all the strategy.” Soon after, Cambridge Analytica suspended Nix pending investigations.

Cambridge Analytica
Cambridge Analytica is a British Political Consulting firm who touts, "we have played a pivotal role in winning presidential races as well as congressional and state elections". The company is owned by Robert Mercer, a conservative billionaire, a supporter of U.S. president Donald Trump and who also has ties to Steve Bannon.

Cambridge Analytica's use of data through Facebook is not new. Facebook data was also used without permission and users' awareness as early as 2015 during the primaries for Republican Presidential candidate, Senator Ted Cruz.

Cambridge Analytica maintains that the harvesting of user data was, "perfectly legal and within the limits of the terms of service (on Facebook).

Christopher Wylie
Christopher Wylie is the 28-year-old, Canadian data scientist and developer, and now whistle-blower, who helped create Cambridge Analytica's psychographic tools. According to The New Yorker, Wylie had been providing information to The Guardian and The Observer. According to Wylie, slogans such as "drain the swamp", "the deep state" and "build the wall" were tested as early as 2014 based on data collected and then tested on unsuspecting Americans.

This Is Your Digital Life
The personality app, "This is Your Digital Life", created by Aleksandr Kogan, a data scientist and psychologist, was the primary source for collecting user data. Those who used the app or were friends of people who used the app were also swept up in data harvest. As early as 2014, This is Your Digital Life, at the time owned by British research company GSR, had a significant number of test takers who may not have known that they inadvertently gave GSR permission to access the profiles of their friends as well. GSR eventually sold this data to Cambridge Analytica. Facebook may or may not have known it.

Facebook Testimony on Capital Hill
For two days, Tuesday, April 10, 2018 and Wednesday, April 11, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, appeared before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing on Capitol Hill. Later this month (April 2018), Facebook's Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfner is also scheduled to testify. Pressure for Zuckerberg to appear before the European lawmakers remains.

"You have control over your own data"
This is a quote Mark Zuckerberg repeated over and over again when questioned about why Facebook collects so much data. In fact, Facebook gives users the appearance that they have control over their data. In reality it is "a theater of controls and settings that few people use". At the heart of the matter is what Facebook data collects beyond user input and even when users do not have a Facebook account. Moreover, until Facebook allows greater control to users to delete data off their servers and build in stronger privacy defaults, their plans to make privacy settings easier for users does little to restore public trust. According to privacy experts, these planned updates are "putting lipstick on a pig" because Facebook's fundamental approach to protecting data is flawed.

Additional Resources
Facebook Container Extension: Take control of how you’re being tracked