A report by UK’s Channel 4 News has found that Cambridge Analytica – the company involved in Facebook’s recent data scandal – has still not deleted data it illegitimately acquired, despite Facebook’s assurances to the contrary.
The data shown in the report pertains to 136,000 people in the U.S. state of Colorado, along with their personality profiles. Earlier this month, it was reported that such data was used on a much wider scale to aid Donald Trump’s presidential campaign by targeting political adverts.
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The issue now is that if Channel 4 is in possession of the data — or at least some of it — then it is impossible to say that no-one else is. In fact, the data could be entirely out of Cambridge Analytica’s hands. Unsurprisingly, this is contrary to Cambridge Analytica’s claim that the data has been deleted, as outlined in a statement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. What’s worse, the data reportedly was passed around using generic e-mail systems; hardly a secure method of transporting delicate and personal information.
The report also goes into further detail about what exactly the data shows. Extrapolated from Facebook activity, the data creates a psychological profile of users based on the following five factors: how agreeable, conscientious, open, extroverted and neurotic they are. Using this, it can target political advertising more effectively to people based on how well they will receive it. In this way, Cambridge Analytica can be said to have helped determine the result of the 2016 U.S. election.
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This marks another round of bad news for Facebook, which has seen its stocks — as well as its market value — take a sharp dive since March after the data reports were initially published. Stock prices closed at $153.03 on Wednesday, and though this was up 0.53% from the day before, it’s down from about $185 before the data scandal occurred. This means, according to Global News estimates, that Facebook has lost around $100 billion USD in market value. In addition, a number of high-profile figures and firms such as Elon Musk and Playboy have deleted their Facebook accounts in response to the scandal.
It remains to be seen what Channel 4’s report will mean for the company.
Featured image: Digitaltrends
