Facebook Suspends Trump-Linked Data Firm for Obtaining User Data

Facebook is cracking down on an analytics firm affiliated with the Trump campaign over inappropriately obtaining date from its users they had previously promised to delete.

The Washington Post reports that Facebook suspended the accounts of Strategic Communication Laboratories, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica – the firm the Trump campaign hired – University of Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan, and Eunoia Technologies, Inc.’s Christopher Wylie.

Cambridge Analytica specializes “in using online data to create voter personality profiles in order to target them with messages, ran data operations for Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign.”

It was reported in December that Cambridge Analytica was asked to turn over documents by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his ongoing investigation of potential collusion during the 2016 election between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Facebook told WaPo late Friday that Kogan “had requested and gained access to information from 270,000 Facebook members after they chose to download his app… ‘thisisyourdigitallife,'” which the social media was told was “a research app used by psychologists.”

Per WaPo:

The Facebook members gave their consent for Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as some limited information about friend groups and contacts. Kogan then broke Facebook’s policies and passed the information to Cambridge and to Wylie. Facebook learned about Kogan’s activities in 2015.

The company removed Kogan’s app at the time and demanded certifications from Kogan and Cambridge, and Wylie, that the information he had shared had been destroyed. Cambridge Analytica, Kogan and Wylie all certified to Facebook that they had done so. But Facebook said it received reports several days ago that the data was not deleted.

[image via screengrab]