Cambridge Analytica data scandal involving Facebook

Cambridge Analytica illegally gathered millions of Facebook users' personal data in the 2010s for political advertising.

Aleksandr Kogan and Global Science Research's 2013 app "This Is Your Digital Life" obtained the data.

The software used Facebook's Open Graph technology to collect users' friends' personal data and develop psychological profiles.

 The software collected 87 million Facebook profiles.

Cambridge Analytica helped Cruz and Trump's 2016 presidential campaigns with data analysis.

The official investigation found that Cambridge Analytica was not involved "beyond some initial enquiries" in the Brexit referendum and that "no substantial violations" occurred.

Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, told The Guardian and The New York Times about data misuse in 2018.

Facebook apologised for data harvesting, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress.

In July 2019, the FTC penalised Facebook $5 billion for privacy violations.

 In October 2019, Facebook paid a £500,000 fine to the UK Information Commissioner's Office for a "substantial risk of harm" to user data.

 Cambridge Analytica declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May 2018.

Facebook patented a psychological targeting method in 2012. Other advertising agencies have used it for years.

However, Cambridge Analytica's openness about their methodology and the quality of their clients—including the Trump presidential campaign and the UK's Vote Leave campaign—brought psychological targeting's risks to public attention. 

The issue raised awareness of privacy and social media's political impact. Twitter trended #DeleteFacebook.

Facebook investors want the Cambridge Analytica fraud lawsuit to be revived

Investors in Meta Platforms Inc. have formally petitioned a US appeals court to reinstate a proposed class action lawsuit accusing Facebook's parent company of hiding a severe privacy breach that allowed a political consulting business to acquire user data.

The motion was made on Wednesday during oral arguments about the Cambridge Analytica incident, in which data for as many as 87 million users was accessed, before the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Investors alleged that the business, then known as Facebook, had misled them by downplaying data breaches as a minor "risk" in 2016 while knowing that Cambridge had acquired user data.

Also Read: What are the best meta (formerly Facebook) marketing tips?

When Facebook's stock price dropped in July 2018, the investors claimed they suffered losses. Facebook claimed that user growth halted when the scope of the hack was made public, and that's why.

Because Cambridge's data used had been in the press in 2015, US District Judge Edward Davila determined in 2020 that Facebook's claims were valid.

Tom Goldstein, an attorney for the investors, said before a three-judge bench on Wednesday that Davila's decision should be overturned because Facebook had played down the news stories and failed to take prompt action.

Joshua Lipshutz, the attorney for Meta, argued in opposition that the business had appropriately disclosed that hacks had occurred and would continue to occur.

Those disclosures were referred to as "boilerplate" by Circuit Judges Margaret McKeown and Jay Bybee, who expressed scepticism and suggested they might not be necessary to investors.

Bybee asserted that it was accurate if there had been just one instance of phishing by an 18-year-old hiding out in his parent's basement. However, given the nature of the leak to Cambridge, it is not helpful.

In response, Lipshutz said that even if there were false representations, investors would still need to demonstrate Meta's evil intent.

It's improbable that the business intended to deceive the public about information that the public already knew, he said.

More than $5 billion in fines were paid by Facebook to US authorities as a result of Cambridge Analytica. In December, it consented to pay USD 725 million to resolve a lawsuit by Facebook users.