Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and the future of personal data farming and exploitation

by Sascha Matuszak

Sascha Matuszak (sascha.matuszak@corporatecompliance.org) is a reporter for SCCE & HCCA, based in Minneapolis, MN. He writes for several SCCE publications, including The Compliance & Ethics Blog (http://complianceandethics.org/).

Much of the web-surfing world is now aware of Cambridge Analytica (CA), the UK-based data firm that helped influence global politics by leveraging data contained within the virtual profiles of real human beings. The company is currently implicated in a major data privacy breach involving millions of Facebook users. In the weeks following The Guardian’s bombshell report,[1] published on March 18 and featuring former CA employee and whistleblower, Christopher Wylie,[2] Cambridge Analytica suspended their CEO, Alexander Nix; UK and US regulators launched investigations; and Facebook’s stock price dropped by as much as $70 billion.

The data in question came primarily from Facebook profiles — an estimated 87 million of them — slurped up via a third-party app created by Cambridge professor Aleksandr Kogan. Kogan used the Amazon Mechanical Turk service to pay people who took his survey, which also extracted their Facebook profiles, as well as the profiles of all their Facebook friends. Kogan then allegedly sold this data to CA for $800,000 through his company, Global Science Research (GSR). That data, as well as the profiling techniques developed by young coders like Christopher Wylie and his team, allegedly helped CA develop solutions and target messaging for Brexit, Kenya’s presidential election,[3] and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, among others.

For Facebook users and casual observers of the Internet, this may come as a surprise. The truth, however, is that selling access to data is Facebook’s business model, and they’ve been selling access to the highest bidder for many years. The CA scandal is only the tip of the iceberg. The Facebook family of companies includes WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as several others, and all of those platforms collect and store data; Facebook’s Messenger has been storing SMS data for years. Google and Apple collect and analyze virtual mountains of data. These major companies, as well as countless websites, profit from the sale of personal data to third parties similar to CA, such as NationBuilder, i360, The Data Trust, Palantir, and thousands of smaller data brokers and digital advertisers.

This document is only available to members. Please log in or become a member.
Become a Member Login
 


Would you like to read this entire article?

If you already subscribe to this publication, just log in. If not, let us send you an email with a link that will allow you to read the entire article for free. Just complete the following form.

* required field

First name field cannot be blank!
Last name field cannot be blank!
We will send you an email that will give you access to this entire article.
Email field cannot be blank!
Enter a valid email!
Company field cannot be blank!
Enter a valid company!
Title field cannot be blank!

We're committed to your privacy. The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) & Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) uses the information you provide us to contact you about our relevant content, products, and services. For more information, check out our Privacy Policy.


About SCCE

The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) is a non-profit, member-based professional association. SCCE supports our members' work with education, news, and discussion forums. We are a community of leaders, defining and shaping the corporate compliance environment across a wide range of industries and geographic regions. In developing and maintaining effective ethics and compliance programs, our members strengthen and protect their companies.

952.933.4977

About HCCA

The Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA), is a 501(c)6 non-profit, member-based professional association. HCCA was established in 1996 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN. We provide training, certification, and other resources to over 10,000 members. Our members include compliance officers and staff from a wide range of organizations, including hospitals, research facilities, clinics and technology service providers.

952.988.0141

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn
Copyright © 2024 by Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) & Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA). No claim to original US Government works. All rights reserved. All information provided through this site, including without limitation all information such as the “look and feel” of the site, data files, graphics, text, photographs, drawings, logos, images, sounds, music, video or audio files on this site, is owned and/or licensed by SCCE & HCCA or its suppliers and is subject to United States and international copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws. Any third party logos and/or content provided herein is owned by such third parties and is used by permission herein. Your use of this site to is subject to our Terms Of Use and Privacy Statement.
Cookie settings