Facebook employees were aware of concerns about“improper data-gathering practices” by Cambridge Analytica months before the Guardian first reported, in December 2015, that the political consultancy had obtained data on millions from an academic. The concerns appeared in a court filing by the attorney general for Washington DC and were subsequently confirmed by Facebook. The new information “could suggest that Facebook has consistently mislead [sic]” British lawmakers “about what it knew and when about Cambridge Analytica”, tweeted Damian Collins, the chair of the House of Commons digital culture media and sport select committee (DCMS) in response to the court filing. In a statement, a company spokesperson said: “Facebook absolutely did not mislead anyone about this timeline.” After publication of this article, the spokesperson acknowledged that Facebook employees heard rumors of data scraping by Cambridge Analytica in September 2015. The … [Read more...] about Facebook acknowledges concerns over Cambridge Analytica emerged earlier than reported
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Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and your data – a look back one year after the personal data scandal
Last Sunday marked the first anniversary of newspapers breaking the story of Cambridge Analytica. The Guardian and the New York Times revealed that the British political consulting firm had been able to harvest the personal data of millions of Facebook users without permission. Cambridge Analytica had to file for insolvency just a few months after the scandal, but most of the outrage fell on Facebook, which was dragged over the coals for allowing this to happen. The social media company’s founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was hauled in front of politicians in the US and Europe, and Facebook has been working relentlessly to fix its reputation and restore public trust. Read more: Facebook to appeal £500,000 fine over Cambridge Analytica scandal The ramifications from the scandal are still being felt. To mark the occasion, I asked several tech experts to weigh in on the incident, and how it has affected not just Facebook, but the entire tech industry. What actually … [Read more...] about Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and your data – a look back one year after the personal data scandal
Academic at centre of Cambridge Analytica scandal sues Facebook
The academic at the centre of the Cambridge Analytica scandal is suing Facebook for defamation over the social network’s claims that he lied about why he was harvesting personal data from profiles on the site. Aleksandr Kogan, a former psychology researcher at the University of Cambridge, was the developer of a personality quiz app that paired individual psychological profiles with personal data scraped from the Facebook pages of quiz-takers and their online friends. That data was used as the root of Cambridge Analytica’s “psychometric” approach to targeting users with political adverts tailored to their personalities. Facebook has always claimed that it was misled by Kogan about how the data was used, and suspended his access to the platform in the wake of the Observer breaking the news about Cambridge Analytica’s data-harvesting operation. The social network said that its rules banned such a reuse of data – but Kogan has always argued that the … [Read more...] about Academic at centre of Cambridge Analytica scandal sues Facebook
The Cambridge Analytica scandal changed the world – but it didn’t change Facebook
It can be hard to remember from down here, beneath the avalanche of words and promises and apologies and blogposts and manifestos that Facebook has unleashed upon us over the course of the past year, but when the Cambridge Analytica story broke one year ago, Mark Zuckerberg’s initial response was a long and deafening silence. It took five full days for the founder and CEO of Facebook – the man with total control over the world’s largest communications platform – to emerge from his Menlo Park cloisters and address the public. When he finally did, he did so with gusto, taking a new set of talking points (“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you”) on a seemingly unending roadshow, from his own Facebook page to the mainstream press to Congress and on to an oddly earnest discussion series he’s planning to subject us to at irregular intervals for the rest of 2019. The culmination … [Read more...] about The Cambridge Analytica scandal changed the world – but it didn’t change Facebook
Mueller questions Cambridge Analytica director Brittany Kaiser
A director of the controversial data company Cambridge Analytica, who appeared with Arron Banks at the launch of the Leave.EU campaign, has been subpoenaed by the US investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. A spokesman for Brittany Kaiser, former business development director for Cambridge Analytica – which collapsed after the Observer revealed details of its misuse of Facebook data – confirmed that she had been subpoenaed by special counsel Robert Mueller, and was cooperating fully with his investigation. He added that she was assisting other US congressional and legal investigations into the company’s activities and had voluntarily turned over documents and data. Kaiser, who gave evidence to the UK parliament last April in which she claimed Cambridge Analytica had carried out in-depth work for Leave.EU, is the second individual connected to the firm subpoenaed by the special counsel. The Electoral Commission has … [Read more...] about Mueller questions Cambridge Analytica director Brittany Kaiser