Facebook user data breach as ’50 MILLION profiles were used to predict and influence US voters’
One of the largest data leaks in Facebook history allowed Cambridge Analytica, which had ties to Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon, to 'use tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behaviour'
A DATA analysis firm employed by President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign reportedly tapped the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission.
The data leak allowed Cambridge Analytica, which had ties to Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon, to capitalise on social media activity of a large portion of the U.S. electorate, The New York Times and The Guardian reported.
Facebook said it suspended Cambridge Analytica over allegations that it kept the improperly obtained user data after telling Facebook it had been deleted.
In a blog post, the social network explained that the firm had received user data from a Facebook app that purported to be a psychological research tool, though the firm was not authorised to have the information.
Roughly 270,000 people downloaded and shared personal details with the app.
Cambridge Analytica later certified in 2015 that it had destroyed the information it had received, according to Facebook, although the social network said it received reports "several days ago" that not all the data was deleted. Facebook says it is investigating.
Facebook has also suspended the access of Cambridge Analytica's parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratories; University of Cambridge psychology professor Aleksandr Kogan, the academic who created the app in question; and another individual, Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies, who also allegedly received user data from the app.
Cambridge Analytica denied wrongdoing in a statement, saying the parent company's SCL Elections unit hired Kogan to undertake "a large scale research project in the US," but subsequently deleted all data it received from Kogan's company after learning the data was obtained in violation of Facebook policies.
The firm said none of Kogan's data was used in its 2016 election work for the "avoidance of doubt."
Kogan did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment. Wylie could not immediately be located.
Cambridge Analytica - which claims to build psychological profiles based on personal details from millions of Americans to categorise individual voters - is best known for its political work during the 2016 US presidential campaign.
But Trump's campaign Saturday denied using the firm's data, saying it relied on the Republican National Committee for its data.
The firm had secured a $15 million investment from billionaire Robert Mercer - who supported the Trump campaign - and wooed Bannon with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behaviour, it's claimed.
But Cambridge Analytica did not have the data to make its new products work, so the firm harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission.
A representative for Bannon did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The company has surfaced in the U.S. probes into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. British officials are also investigating the firm in connection with the June 2016 EU referendum.
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