FBI joins FB data scandal probe
Facebook shares fell yesterday after it emerged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation into whether the social network hid details of the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal from the public.
Almost $12 billion ($NZ17.7b) was wiped from the social network’s value in early trade, a 2pc share price fall, after it emerged that several government agencies had joined an investigation into the company.
Officials will examine how it was possible for 71 million American users to have their personal information mined and handed over to a political consultancy that included Republican candidates and president-to-be Donald Trump among its clients.
The FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission will join the ongoing Department of Justice investigation. Officials are scrutinising statements made by Facebook executives and its founder after the scandal came to light. Facebook is also cooperating with Britain’s data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office.
A Facebook spokesman said: ‘‘We are co-operating with officials in the US, UK and beyond. We’ve provided public testimony, answered questions, and pledged to continue our assistance as their work continues.’’
In 2013, Cambridge University professor Aleksandr Kogan created a quiz app that, through Facebook’s data sharing tool, was able to collect personal information on people who installed it, along with their friends’ information. The app was downloaded by just 305,000 people but it received personal information on 87 million Facebook users around the world through the ‘‘friend’’ loophole.
Initially, Kogan claimed the app was for academic purposes. However, he changed the terms of service to commercial use, later passing the dataset to Cambridge Analytica, a London-based consultancy that offered targeted political advertising using insight from social media.
Facebook said it became aware that the data had been sold on in 2015, but was assured it was deleted. It was not until new reports of the issue emerged in March that it responded further, promising to alert people who were affected. It has since investigated 2000 apps, suspending 200 for abuse.
Facebook shut down the data sharing tool in 2014, but over the weekend it became embroiled in a fresh scandal when it emerged that it continued to share data with more than 60 companies even though it was aware of potential misuse. The social network gave 61 companies a year to wean themselves off the rich data provided through its application programmer interface (API), including Russian internet giant Mail.ru along with Nike, UPS, dating app Hinge and a variety of news networks.