U.K. watchdog evaluates data-mining evidence
LONDON — Britain’s information regulator said on Saturday it was assessing evidence gathered from a raid on the office of datamining firm Cambridge Analytica, part of an investigation into alleged misuse of personal information by political campaigns and social-media companies such as Facebook.
More than a dozen investigators from the Information Commissioner’s Office entered the company’s central London office late Friday, shortly after a High Court judge granted a warrant. The investigators then left the premises on Saturday, after about seven hours of searching.
The regulator said it will “consider the evidence before deciding the next steps.”
“This is one part of a larger investigation by the ICO into the use of personal data and analytics by political campaigns, parties, social-media companies and other commercial actors,” it said.
Authorities in Britain as well as the U.S. are investigating Cambridge Analytica over allegations the firm improperly obtained data from 50 million Facebook users and used it to manipulate elections, including the 2016 White House race and the 2016 Brexit vote in Britain.
Both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook deny wrongdoing.
The data firm suspended its CEO Alexander Nix last week after video was shown on television that appeared to show Nix suggesting tactics such as entrapment or bribery that his company could use to discredit politicians. The video also showed Nix saying Cambridge Analytica played a major role in securing Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Cambridge Analytica’s acting chief executive, Alexander Tayler, said on Friday that he was sorry that SCL Elections, an affiliate of his company, “licensed Facebook data and derivatives from a research company [Global Science Research] that had not received consent from most respondents” in 2014.
“The company believed that the data had been obtained in line with Facebook’s terms of service.”
Tayler’s statement said the data was deleted in 2015 at Facebook’s request.