Cambridge Analytica Shut Down: Here's what has happened in the Facebook data scandal till now; read details
Cambridge Analytica Shut Down: Here's what has happened in the Facebook data scandal till now; read details
Cambridge Analytica, the centre of Facebook data breach scandal announced the bankruptcy and closing down of their operations in US and UK. Cambridge Analytica is a research consultancy which assisted Donald Trump in their political campaign during presidential elections and allegedly acquired the data of 85 million Facebook users. And later used this data to influence the American voters by designing targeted political campaigns.
Though, Cambridge analytical defended itself “Over the past several months, Cambridge Analytica has been the subject of numerous unfounded accusations and, despite the company’s efforts to correct the record, has been vilified for activities that are not only legal but also widely accepted as a standard component of online advertising in both the political and commercial arenas,”.
It also added, because of the controversy we have lost our clients and there is no point to continue our business under the same name. Facebook officials commented “This doesn't change our commitment and determination to understand exactly what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. We are continuing with our investigation in cooperation with the relevant authorities."
An outside researcher developed a tool ThisIsYourDigitalLife which was widely used over Facebook and collected their personal data. And Cambridge Analytica had the access to this data. It came in the notice of facebook. Initially, Analytica declared that data has been deleted. But a whistleblower and internal employee of the company Christopher Wylie made allegations that analytical still have the data of Facebook users.
In last few months Facebook faced a lot of denunciation for miss handling the user's data and raise the question of privacy in the current cyber era.