The current situation between European Union and Britain arising out of Brexit vote would have been a bit different, if there had been no “cheating” by proponents who wanted to leave the EU according to Whistle-blower Whistle-blower Christopher Wylie who was speaking to a UK parliamentary committee.
The hearing for Wylie’s on Tuesday was the latest in a flurry of news events since the story broke on how a firm, called Cambridge Analytica, as per the allegation used illegally obtained data of more than 50 million Facebook users to influence political outcomes.
Here are the details with breakdown of the fast-developing story so far:
As on March 17, the London Observer and The New York Times in a news report wrote that a UK-based data firm Cambridge Analytica acquired millions of Facebook users’ personal and confidential information to build software that could target potential swing voters in next political campaigns around the world, including that of US President Donald Trump in 2016 election bid.
As the story broke through the newspapers with the help of Cambridge Analytica’s co-founder and now whistle-blower Christopher Wylie, it send a strong wave of speculation around the world.
“We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles and built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built on,” he told the Observer.
The data which was in use by the firm was reportedly accumulated in early 2014 through an application called “thisisyourdigitallife”, which was built by a Russian-American researcher at Cambridge University called Aleksandr Kogan.
A total of 270,000 users agreed to have their data collected and used for academic research in exchange for a small payment. As per The Times report, Cambridge Analytica covered the costs of the app, which went on more than $800,000.
Apart from the confidential personal information collected from the people who downloaded the app, other data related to friends of the user was also collected.
The information provided by Kogan to Facebook was of more than 50 million Facebook users. The data was used by the company to create at least 30 million “psychographic” profiles that could then be used to design targeted political ads.
After the initial news reports and further information, a string of allegations and events started happening that was difficult to be contained.
Several investigations were launched across the Atlantic sides. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission confirmed on Monday that there was an investigation going on over Facebook’s privacy practices. UK authorities raided Cambridge Analytica’s London based offices last Friday night.
Cambridge Analytica said on March 17 it has already deleted all data received from Kogan’s company, Global Science Research (GSR), when it came to know that it had not been obtained in line with Facebook’s policies.
“No data from GSR was used by Cambridge Analytica as part of the services it provided to the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign,” it said.
You May Also Read: Congress Did Not Take Cambridge Analytica’s Help : Congress Spokesperson Surjiwala