Facebook–Cambridge
Analytica data scandal
Prepared by
Lynn Al Tarabichi
Under supervision of
Dr. Mouayed Saleh
BACKGROUND
TIMELINE
01
02
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
03
How Facebook
responded
04
Witness and expert
testimony
05
Conclusion
01
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
The Facebook data privacy scandal centers around the collection of personally
identifiable information of up to 87 million users by the political consulting and
strategic communication firm Cambridge Analytica. That company--and others--were
able to gain access to personal data of Facebook users due to the confluence of a
variety of factors.
Background
OCEAN
personality
test
Facebook data
scandal
USA elections
Poor thirdparty control
02
TIMELINE
TIMELINE
March 21, 2018
Fear of increased regulations
over social media firms
triggered Facebook’s shares
to tumble more than 9% in
the past week, losing $60
billion.
March, 25 2018
Facebook apologizes for the
data scandal with a full page
ad in newspapers in the US
and UK
March, 28 2018
April 9, 2018
April 10, 2018
Facebook announces
changes to privacy settings
to make them easier to find
and use
Facebook says it will begin
informing users if their data
was passed o Cambridge
Analytica from today by
dropping a notification into
the News Feed
Mark Zuckerberg testifies to
congress. Facebook begins
blocking apps accessing
user data 90 days after nonuse.
03
RESPONSE
FACEBOOK RESPONSE
On March 16, 2018, Facebook announced that SCL and
Cambridge Analytica had been banned from the platform. The
announcement indicated, correctly, that "Kogan gained
access to this information in a legitimate way and through the
proper channels that governed all developers on Facebook at
that time," and passing the information to a third party was
against the platform policies.
FACEBOOK RESPONSE
“The claim that this is a data breach is
completely false. Aleksandr Kogan
requested and gained access to information
from users who chose to sign up to his app,
and everyone involved gave their consent.
People knowingly provided their
information, no systems were infiltrated,
and no passwords or sensitive pieces of
information were stolen or hacked”
FACEBOOK RESPONSE
on April 4, 2018, Facebook announced a series of changes to data handling
practices and API access capabilities. Foremost among these include limiting the
Events API, which is no longer able to access the guest list or wall posts.
•
On April 10, 2018, and April 11, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress.
Details about his testimony are in the next section of this article.
•
On April 10, 2018, Facebook announced the launch of its data abuse bug bounty
program. While Facebook has an existing security bug bounty program, this is
targeted specifically to prevent malicious users from engaging in data harvesting.
There is no limit to how much Facebook could potentially pay in a bounty, though to
date the highest amount the company has paid is $40,000 for a security bug.
•
•
On May 14, 2018, "around 200" apps were banned from Facebook as part of an
investigation into if companies have abused APIs to harvest personal information.
The company declined to provide a list of offending apps.
04
Witness and
expert
testimoney
WITNESS AND EXPERT TESTIOMENY
05
CONCLUSION
RESOURCES
■
Chan, Rosalie. "The Cambridge Analytica whistleblower explains how the firm
used Facebook data to sway elections". Business Insider. Retrieved May
7, 2020.
■
Meredith, Sam (April 10, 2018). "Facebook-Cambridge Analytica: A timeline
of the data hijacking scandal". CNBC. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
■
Gilbert, Alexandra Ma, Ben. "Facebook understood how dangerous the
Trump-linked data firm Cambridge Analytica could be much earlier than it
previously said. Here's everything that's happened up until now". Business
Insider. Retrieved May 8,2020.