In this 21st century, data holders possess more power than governments. The ability to influence the opinion of people lies with them. Revisiting the Cambridge Analytica data scandal just reassures that nothing is bigger than Big data, not even democracy.

2. parties involved in the data scandal.
Alexander Nix
Ex CEO, Cambridge
Analytica
ELECTION INFLUENCER
THE MASTERMIND
Christopher Wylie
Ex Data Consultant,
Cambridge Analytica
WHISTLEBLOWER
DISCLOSED DETAILS
Mark Zuckerberg
CEO, Facebook
INNOCENT ACTOR
THE FACILITATOR
Donald Trump
President, U.S.A
SCANDAL BENEFICIARY
WALLET OF CAMBRIDGE
ANALYTICA
Ted Cruz
2016 Republican Nominee
SCANDAL BENEFICIARY
WALLET OF CAMBRIDGE
ANALYTICA
Brittany Kaiser
Ex Director, Cambridge
Analytica
WHISTLEBLOWER
GOVERNMENT TESTIFIER
Aleksandr Kogan
Developer of ‘This is your
digital life’
THE BRAIN BEHIND THE
SCANDAL
THE FACILITATOR
Lukoil, Russian Company
Interested in data used for
targeting American voters
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE
PROXY OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT
United Kingdom
Independence Party
Client to Cambridge Analytica
with Leave.EU for Brexit
BREXIT INFLUENCERS
87 million users, who faced
data privacy breach in this
scandal
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3. What data was collected?
- Where users lived
- What pages users liked
- Psychographic profiles of users
- Private messages
- Characteristics and personality traits like openness, conscientiousness,
agreeableness, IQ, gender, age, political views, and religion (Hartmans).
the unethical data collection. How was data collected?
(Chang)
How was the data processed?
The quiz app had survey questions which were turned into insights for voting
purposes, using the ‘oceans model’ harvesting more than 5,000 data points on
each profile and categorizing them accordingly based on their answers and their
attitude towards other pages and posts (Chang).
Where it went wrong?
Point of view #1
The loophole in the quiz app “thisismydigitallife” which allowed access to the
profiles of participants friends is where it all went wrong, we need to understand
that the consent was present for these initial participants of the quiz app, but not
that of their friends.
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4. 2016 US elections and cambridge analytica.
Is using big data justified in this scenario?
Point of view #2
Cambridge Analytica was new and did not have much data
with itself, the primary purpose for using the help of big
data was just to understand the voters, and was not used to
defame the competition. Keeping in mind this intention,
privacy was still breached of millions of users and as such
no intention, no matter how pure can justify this data
breach for election purpose.
Ted Cruz
2016 Republican
Nominee
In 2016, Ted Cruz was the first to hire
Cambridge Analytica for his presidential
campaign in getting access to psychographic
profiles on North American voters, he paid
close to $6 million for the service. The data
was then used to create tailored
advertisements for each person to sway them
into voting for Cruz. After losing to Donald
Trump, the Ted Cruz campaign was over, with
a huge database still left with Cambridge
Analytica. (“Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal”).
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5. 2016 US elections and cambridge analytica.
Point of view #3
Manipulating voters perception is unethical at all
levels, Facebook started with the idea of
connecting the world, but the elections surely
showed us a bitter side to this era of big data.
Facebook allowed microtargeting of its users for
the benefit of Donald Trump. Nothing is real
anymore, what we see today on these social media
platforms, all of it is crafted with an ulterior
motive, aren’t data rights are human rights?
Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign utilized
the harvest data to build psychographic profiles,
determining users' personality traits based on their
Facebook activity. The campaign team used this
information as a micro-targeting technique,
displaying customized messages about Trump to
different US voters on various digital platforms
(“Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal”).
Donald Trump
President, U.S.A
Ads were segmented into different categories, mainly based on
whether individuals were Trump supporters or potential swing votes.
Supporters of Trump received triumphant visuals of him, as well as
information regarding polling stations. Swing voters were instead
often shown images of Trump’s more notable supporters and negative
graphics or ideas about his opponent, Hillary Clinton. For example, the
collected data was specifically used by “Make America Number 1 Super
PAC” to attack Clinton through constructed advertisements that
attempted to highlight the corruption of Clinton as a way of propping
up Trump as a better candidate for presidency (“Facebook–Cambridge Analytica
data scandal”).
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6. “As you can see with the evidence… chargeable work
was completed for UKIP and Leave.EU, and I have strong
reasons to believe that those datasets and analysed data
processed by Cambridge Analytica as part of a Phase 1
payable work engagement… were later used by the
Leave.EU campaign without Cambridge Analytica’s
further assistance.
We never had a contract with Leave.EU. The contract
was with the UK Independence party for the analysis of
this data, but it was meant to benefit Leave.EU,”
- Brittany Kaiser, whistleblower (Lomas).
brexit and cambridge analytica.
Point of view #4
The datasets collected by Leave.EU helped them target
specific messages to audiences allowing them to gather
support on brexit, facebook as a medium was used to
gather data and circulate messages allowing them to swing
votes in their court. One specific post involved Leave.EU to
circulate articles showing Turkey joining EU, the
drawbacks of being a part of EU, they used fear with data
to drive their own purpose. Again data over democracy?
Cambridge Analytica was allegedly hired
as a consultant company for Leave.EU
and the United Kingdom Independence
Party during 2016, as an effort to
convince people to support Brexit.
These rumors were the result of the
leaked internal emails that were sent
between the British firm and the British
parliament .
Brittany Kaiser declared that the datasets that Leave.EU utilize
to create databases were provided by Cambridge Analytica.
These datasets composed of the data obtained from Facebook
were said to be work done as an initial job deliverable for
them. Although Arron Banks, co-founder of Leave.EU, denied
any involvement with the company, he later declared “When
we said we’d hired Cambridge Analytica, maybe a better
choice of words could have been deployed." (“Facebook–Cambridge
Analytica data scandal”).
United Kingdom
Independence Party
Client to Cambridge Analytica
with Leave.EU for Brexit
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7. (Chang).
role of facebook in data scandal.
Point of view #5
Facebook did not live up to its promise of keeping its
user’s data safe. If not for Christopher Wiley and
Brittany Kaiser, we would never realise the loopholes
that exist in the data security system employed by such
platforms. We never realise how much power is
contained within these few companies. Data is truly
turning out to be more dangerous than nuclear
weapons, democracy is bending down to the powerful
few who own critical data. And the messages that are
circulated basis these data insights is what is more
scary. The pros of such platforms is heavily outweighed
by the cons, visible in the form of data and privacy
breach.
ThisIsMyDigitalLife
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3
4
1
Survey questions were developed in consultation with Cambridge
Analytica for the quiz app thisismydigitallife, the questions were
formed in such a way as to identify collection of data on 5,000 data
points.
2
The survey app was given permission by facebook to access data of
all friends, of the survey respondents. Allowing the quiz app to
gather data points on an amplified audience.
3
The data collected was then stored back at Cambridge Analytica,
the data sets were analysed and political targeting messages were
developed.
4
The targeted messages were then dissipated again through
facebook, each user was shown a different article, so as to swing
their votes in a more favourable direction for their client.
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8. impact on facebook.
Point of view #6
This data scandal can never be paid for in
numbers, it is to understand that no sum
of money can restore the data breach of 87
million users. The whistleblower did make
a difference by bringing in a need for
stricter laws.
Government's Response
In early July 2018, the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner's Office announced it intended to
fine Facebook £500,000 ($663,000) over the data breach, this being the maximum fine allowed at the
time of the breach,
In March 2019, a court filing by the U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia alleged that
Facebook knew of Cambridge Analytica's "improper data-gathering practices" months before they were
first publicly reported in December 2015.
In July 2019, the Federal Trade Commission voted to approve fining Facebook around $5 billion.
(“Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal”).
Facebook users and investors
Since April 2018, the first full month since the breaking of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, the
number of likes, posts and shares on the site had decreased by almost 20%, and has decreased ever
since.On March 26, 2018, a little after a week after the story was initially published, Facebook stock fell by
about 24%, equivalent to $134 billion. By May 10, Wall Street reported that the company recovered their
losses. (“Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal”).
#DeleteFacebook Movement
The public reacted to the data privacy breach by initiating the campaign #DeleteFacebook with the aim
of starting a movement to boycott Facebook. The co-founder of WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook,
joined in on the movement by declaring it was time to delete the platform. The hashtag was tweeted
almost 400,000 times Twitter within a 30 day period after news of the data breach.
93% of the mentions of the hashtag actually appeared on Twitter, making it the main social media
platform used to share the hashtag. (“Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal”).
#OwnYourData Movement
Created by Kaiser as a Facebook campaign, was also used in Kaiser's petition for Facebook to alter their
policies and give users increased power and control over their data, which she refers to as users’ assets
and property. (“Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal”).
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9. introduction of data privacy laws.
U.S.A
Data privacy is not highly legislated or regulated in the U.S. Very few states,
however, recognize an individual's right to privacy, a notable exception being
California. An inalienable right to privacy is enshrined in the California
Constitution's article 1, section 1, and the California legislature has enacted
several pieces of legislation aimed at protecting this right. The California Online
Privacy Protection Act (OPPA) of 2003 requires operators of commercial web
sites or online services that collect personal information on California residents
through a web site to conspicuously post a privacy policy on the site and to
comply with its policy. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)
establishes criminal sanctions for interception of electronic communication.
However, the legislation has been criticized for lack of impact due to loopholes
(“Information privacy law”).
EU
The General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) is a regulation in
EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union (EU) and the
European Economic Area (EEA). It also addresses the transfer of personal data
outside the EU and EEA areas. The GDPR aims primarily to give control to
individuals over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment
for international business. Data controllers must clearly disclose any data
collection, declare the lawful basis and purpose for data processing, and state
how long data is being retained and if it is being shared with any third parties or
outside of the EEA. Data subjects have the right to request a portable copy of the
data collected by a controller in a common format, and the right to have their
data erased under certain circumstance (“General Data Protection Regulation”).
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10. - The whistleblowers in the data scandal exposed to the world the importance of data privacy laws needed to regulate
data oriented firms, to balance off the power being held by them.
- The Facebook fiasco ended up with CEO, Mark Zuckerberg apologizing publicly on various channels.
- Facebook was hit hard on its market capitalization, after paying hefty fines to the government, the share price also took
a big hit, while Cambridge Analytica rolled off the books post the resignation from Alexander Nix.
- This scandal helped many regulators realise the need for a unified data privacy law governing activities of such
companies.
- Newer audit processes are required to ensure that no private data is being breached.
- Countries like US still do not have a regulatory law in place to govern their data privacy issues, something which is
needed on an immediate basis.
- The industry in 2020 as we see it has become more aware about the data privacy laws and almost all of the companies
are displaying a data policy on their app/ websites.
- Moving forward, data is a very dangerous weapon and there should be an international regulatory body set up to ensure
that no monopoly exists when it comes to data handling.
conclusion.
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11. works cited.
“Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal.” Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 June 2020, 1:13 pm,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal#Donald_Trump_campaign>. Accessed 21 June 2020.
Hartmans, Avery. It's impossible to know exactly what data Cambridge Analytica scraped from Facebook — but here's the kind of information apps could access in
2014. 22 March 2018. June 2020. <https://www.businessinsider.com/what-data-did-cambridge-analytica-have-access-to-from-facebook-2018-3>.
Chang, Alvin. The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, explained with a simple diagram. 2 May 2018. June 2020.
<https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/23/17151916/facebook-cambridge-analytica-trump-diagram>.
Lomas, Natasha. Former Cambridge Analytica director, Brittany Kaiser, dumps more evidence of Brexit’s democratic trainwreck. 30 July 2019. June 2020.
<https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/30/brittany-kaiser-dumps-more-evidence-of-brexits-democratic-trainwreck/>.
“General Data Protection Regulation.” Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 June 2020, 1:13 pm, 17 June 5:47 pm,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation . Accessed 21 June 2020>.
“Information privacy law.” Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 April 2020, 10:08 am, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_privacy_law .
Accessed 21 June 2020.
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