I’ve been monitoring this incredible Cambridge Analytica (“CA”) story as well as the frenzied media and social media circus surrounding it, which appears to be designed to deflect attention and obscure very real problems.
First a little background. A contractor (Christopher Wylie) who claims to be a “founder” of CA made some pretty serious allegations recently.
According to the objective and thoroughly vetted journalism of the New York Times, Robert Mercer, a “wealthy Republican donor [ ] wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior.”
But they didn’t have the data to put the tools to the test so, according to the nyt, CA “harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission.”
The nyt calls it “one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history” citing anonymous “former Cambridge employees, associates” and undisclosed documents.
According to Wylie, “[r]ules don’t matter for them. For them, this is a war, and it’s all fair.” “They want to fight a culture war in America. Cambridge Analytica was supposed to be the arsenal of weapons to fight the culture war.”
CA contends that Wylie was an independent contractor and that he’s lying about his “founder” status claim. CA claims that when Wylie left in 2014, there were lingering intellectual property disputes. The nyt claims that Wylie and his team are “liberal-leaning” politically. While I’m not drawing any conclusions about Wylie’s veracity, in the legal profession, this is information that might be used to impeach a witness’s credibility.
Notably also, Wylie claims he worked at CA until 2014, more than two years before Trump’s election. That’s quite a long time ago.
But putting all the political stuff aside, what’s the crux?
CA hired Cambridge University psychology professor, Dr. Alex Kogan, to develop a Facebook app in June 2014 to assist with data collection called “thisisyourdigitallife”. When users downloaded the app, their profile data was made available – apparently some without user consent in violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service. Importantly, Facebook was paid $800,000 for the access. When Dr. Kogan approached Facebook he allegedly stated he was collecting the data for “research purposes,” which may be at least partially true. Dr. Kogan has yet to give his full account, but the NYT acknowledged that he kept a copy of the data for his own research.
In 2015, when Facebook was informed that data was being collected in violation of its TOS, it required that Kogan, CA, and Wylie certify destruction of the data. All parties certified. But somehow now, two years later, Wylie comes forward to blow the whistle on CA for failing to abide.
The tweet storm that followed the nyt and Guardian articles was incredible. But who can blame their readers with inflammatory and sensational headlines like – –
“HOW TRUMP CONSULTANTS EXPLOITED THE FACEBOOK DATA OF MILLIONS”
“THE CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA FILES ‘I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower”.
DEFLECT!! Quick, tie this thing to Trump, Bannon, the Trump campaign, the Russians, the Martians, and/or the mysterious alien life form oozing from the river birch tree in my yard and maybe, just maybe, Facebook will avoid blame. Facebook is the victim after all. Yeah. That’s the ticket!
I’m not kidding by the way, WHAT IS THIS?
But what’s this really about? I’m honestly not quite sure yet. Beyond those who were involved, no one is, despite what they say. And there are a lot of questions that need to be answered YESTERDAY. Questions like:
- Has the data been destroyed as CA and Kogan claim and when was it destroyed?
- Why can’t CA seem to keep its story straight?
- Why did it take Wylie 2 years to come forward if he was so concerned about CA’s political focus?
- What did the Facebook Terms of Service say in 2014 about data mining and consent?
- Did Facebook violate its own TOS by sharing the data in violation of 5 of the FTC Act?
- How often does Facebook engage in this practice?
- Did Kogan lie when he entered into the FB agreement and violate the TOS?
- What exactly did Kogan say to Facebook? Is there a supporting document?
- Did Facebook exercise the proper level of diligence after the discovery?
- Did Facebook violate any breach notification statutes?
- How does the 2011 decision and order in In the Matter of Facebook, Inc., FTC File No. 092-3184 affect future enforcement against Facebook?
Yes, that’s right. Facebook was rung up in 2011 for “deceptive practices” in violation of § 5 of the FTC Act for, among other things, deceiving consumers by repeatedly making changes to services so that information designated as private was made public in violation of promises in its privacy notice. Facebook settled the action brought by the FTC against them and they were:
- Required to provide clear notice and obtain user consent before retroactive changes to material privacy terms;
- Barred from making any further deceptive privacy claims;
- Required to establish and maintain a comprehensive privacy program; and
- Required to obtain biannual independent third-party audits of its privacy program for 20 years.
If Facebook is found to be in violation of the terms of the 2011 settlement and order, then substantial fines could be forthcoming.
What I am sure of, however, is this. Turning this into a political or partisan issue will not help. There are serious privacy questions here that all parties must answer, so let’s hold judgment until we have them.
Finally, let’s not forget that the Guardian reported on a controversial program implemented by the Obama 2012 campaign that mined Facebook user data after they signed up to participate. I doubt that participants knew that their date of birth, interests, home location, and network of friends was being mined and shared with a third-party vendor. Indeed, Obama’s campaign pioneered many of the political data mining techniques being discussed here. At that time, it was viewed as brilliant.
PrivacyPig™ 