The Cambridge Analytica Scandal

The Cambridge Analytica Scandal

The Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal involved the unauthorized harvesting of personal data from millions of Facebook users, which was then used for psychographic profiling and targeted political advertising.

Background

The CA scandal exposed vulnerabilities in social media platforms, the misuse of personal data for political gain, and the lack of regulatory safeguards.

Data Theft

Harvesting

In 2013, Aleksandr Kogan, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, developed a Facebook app called "This Is Your Digital Life" under his company, Global Science Research (GSR). The app, presented as a personality quiz, paid users to take psychological surveys while collecting their Facebook data, including their friends' information, due to Facebook’s permissive API policies at the time. Approximately 270,000 users directly took the quiz, and harvested data from friends of quiz-takers due to Facebook’s Open Graph platform, accessing an estimated 87 million profiles. The collected data included likes, location, birth dates, friend networks, and some users' private messages.

Transferred to Cambridge Analytica

Kogan violated Facebook’s terms by sharing the data with CA, a political consulting firm co-founded by Republican donor Robert Mercer and led by CEO Alexander Nix. CA used the data to build psychographic profiles based on the Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism (OCEAN) model to predict and influence voter behavior.

Political Applications:

• Ted Cruz’s 2016 Presidential Campaign: CA was hired to micro-target voters with tailored ads.
• Donald Trump’s 2016 Campaign: The psychographic models allegedly helped the Trump campaign identify and persuade swing voters.
• Brexit Referendum (2016): CA was linked to the pro-Brexit group Leave.EU, though investigations later found no direct evidence of significant involvement.

Whistleblower Revelations

In March 2018, former CA employee Christopher Wylie exposed the scandal through The Guardian and The New York Times, revealing that Facebook had known about the breach since 2015 but failed to notify affected users or enforce data deletion.

FaceBooks's response

Facebook dismissed the incident as a "violation of terms" rather than a "data breach".

Outcome

• Mark Zuckerberg testified before the U.S. Congress in April 2018, acknowledging lapses in oversight.
• FaceBook faced a $5 billion FTC fine in 2019 for privacy violations.
• Cambridge Analytica filed for bankruptcy in May 2018 amid investigations.
• Regulatory Reforms:
  • The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was strengthened in response.
  • U.S. lawmakers proposed stricter social media regulations, though no comprehensive federal law was passed.

Consumer response

Summary and key issues of prevailing sentiment from the consumers and commentators that can be documented via articles, emails to support, reviews and forum posts.

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References

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