Electoral body to investigate Cambridge Analytica activity in Argentina after claims

The

National Electoral Chamber (CNE) will carry out an investigation into the alleged activities in Argentine elections of the disgraced British campaign firm Cambridge Analytica.

Last week, an undercover investigation probing Cambridge Analytica, a British firm hired by Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, revealed executives boasted they could entrap politicians in compromising situations with bribes and Ukrainian sex workers, and spread misinformation online.

In undercover footage published by Britain’s Channel 4 News, the executives claimed to have worked in more 200 elections across the world, including Argentina, the Czech Republic, India, Kenya and Nigeria.

According to a joint investigation by The New York Times and Britain’s The Observer, Cambridge Analytica was able to create psychological profiles on 50 million Facebook users through the use of a personality prediction app that was downloaded by 270,000 people, but also scooped up data from friends.

The British firm said it “strongly denies” the claims from Channel 4 as well as reports on misuse of Facebook data.

Meanwhile, Facebook said it has hired a digital forensics firm to examine how the data leak occurred and to ensure that any data collected had been destroyed.

GOVERNMENT SAYS DID NOT WORK WITH FIRM

The government denies it has had any involvement with Cambridge Analytica, or Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), a related firm.

“We prefer to have control over our teams and not to outsource this type of service”, Macri administration sources said in comments reported by Infobae.

The data harvesting scandal has sent shockwaves through the political elite of a number of countries while social media giant Facebook has also come under scrutiny for its privacy policies.

T he crisis has renewedqu estions about Fa cebo ok’ sability to protect the privacy of its users while also exploiting their personal details to fuel its lucrative advertising business. It has also deepened concerns about the social media network’s ability to avoid being exploited to spread propaganda and sway elections.

The huge social network now faces investigations on both sides of the Atlantic over itsdatapract ices andan unknownnum be roflawsuits.

It was Aleksandr Kogan, a University of Cambridge researcher, who developed the app This Is Your Digital Life, which was used to take the data from Facebook.

Facebook says it was downloaded by 270,000 people, but it also gave Kogan access to their friends, giving him a wealth of information which a whistleblower said extended to up to 50 million users.

T he datawasp as sed to Cambridge Anal y tic a,butthecompan yhas blamed him for misus ingit–whi le heclaimst he y and Facebook have used him as a scapegoat.