Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach
Whistleblower describes how firm linked to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon compiled user data to target American voters
The data analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters, in one of the tech giant’s biggest ever data breaches, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box.
A whistleblower has revealed to the Observer how Cambridge Analytica – a company owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon – used personal information taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters, in order to target them with personalised political advertisements.
Christopher Wylie, who worked with a Cambridge University academic to obtain the data, told the Observer: “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built on.”
Documents seen by the Observer, and confirmed by a Facebook statement, show that by late 2015 the company had found out that information had been harvested on an unprecedented scale. However, at the time it failed to alert users and took only limited steps to recover and secure the private information of more than 50 million individuals.
Whistleblower describes how firm linked to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon compiled user data to target American voters
The data analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters, in one of the tech giant’s biggest ever data breaches, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box.
A whistleblower has revealed to the Observer how Cambridge Analytica – a company owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon – used personal information taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters, in order to target them with personalised political advertisements.
Christopher Wylie, who worked with a Cambridge University academic to obtain the data, told the Observer: “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built on.”
Documents seen by the Observer, and confirmed by a Facebook statement, show that by late 2015 the company had found out that information had been harvested on an unprecedented scale. However, at the time it failed to alert users and took only limited steps to recover and secure the private information of more than 50 million individuals.
The New York Times is reporting that copies of the data harvested for Cambridge Analytica could still be found online; its reporting team had viewed some of the raw data.
The data was collected through an app called thisisyourdigitallife, built by academic Aleksandr Kogan, separately from his work at Cambridge University. Through his company Global Science Research (GSR), in collaboration with Cambridge Analytica, hundreds of thousands of users were paid to take a personality test and agreed to have their data collected for academic use.
However, the app also collected the information of the test-takers’ Facebook friends, leading to the accumulation of a data pool tens of millions-strong. Facebook’s “platform policy” allowed only collection of friends’ data to improve user experience in the app and barred it being sold on or used for advertising. The discovery of the unprecedented data harvesting, and the use to which it was put, raises urgent new questions about Facebook’s role in targeting voters in the US presidential election. It comes only weeks after indictments of 13 Russians by the special counsel Robert Mueller which stated they had used the platform to perpetrate “information warfare” against the US.
The New York Times is reporting that copies of the data harvested for Cambridge Analytica could still be found online; its reporting team had viewed some of the raw data.
The data was collected through an app called thisisyourdigitallife, built by academic Aleksandr Kogan, separately from his work at Cambridge University. Through his company Global Science Research (GSR), in collaboration with Cambridge Analytica, hundreds of thousands of users were paid to take a personality test and agreed to have their data collected for academic use.
However, the app also collected the information of the test-takers’ Facebook friends, leading to the accumulation of a data pool tens of millions-strong. Facebook’s “platform policy” allowed only collection of friends’ data to improve user experience in the app and barred it being sold on or used for advertising. The discovery of the unprecedented data harvesting, and the use to which it was put, raises urgent new questions about Facebook’s role in targeting voters in the US presidential election. It comes only weeks after indictments of 13 Russians by the special counsel Robert Mueller which stated they had used the platform to perpetrate “information warfare” against the US.
Cambridge Analytica and Facebook are one focus of an inquiry into data and politics by the British Information Commissioner’s Office. Separately, the Electoral Commission is also investigating what role Cambridge Analytica played in the EU referendum.
“We are investigating the circumstances in which Facebook data may have been illegally acquired and used,” said the information commissioner Elizabeth Denham. “It’s part of our ongoing investigation into the use of data analytics for political purposes which was launched to consider how political parties and campaigns, data analytics companies and social media platforms in the UK are using and analysing people’s personal information to micro-target voters.”
On Friday, four days after the Observer sought comment for this story, but more than two years after the data breach was first reported, Facebook announced that it was suspending Cambridge Analytica and Kogan from the platform, pending further information over misuse of data. Separately, Facebook’s external lawyers warned the Observer it was making “false and defamatory” allegations, and reserved Facebook’s legal position.
The revelations provoked widespread outrage. The Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced that the state would be launching an investigation. “Residents deserve answers immediately from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica,” she said on Twitter.
The Democratic senator Mark Warner said the harvesting of data on such a vast scale for political targeting underlined the need for Congress to improve controls. He has proposed an Honest Ads Act to regulate online political advertising the same way as television, radio and print. “This story is more evidence that the online political advertising market is essentially the Wild West. Whether it’s allowing Russians to purchase political ads, or extensive micro-targeting based on ill-gotten user data, it’s clear that, left unregulated, this market will continue to be prone to deception and lacking in transparency,” he said.
Last month both Facebook and the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, told a parliamentary inquiry on fake news: that the company did not have or use private Facebook data.
Simon Milner, Facebook’s UK policy director, when asked if Cambridge Analytica had Facebook data, told MPs: “They may have lots of data but it will not be Facebook user data. It may be data about people who are on Facebook that they have gathered themselves, but it is not data that we have provided.”
Cambridge Analytica’s chief executive, Alexander Nix, told the inquiry: “We do not work with Facebook data and we do not have Facebook data.”
Wylie, a Canadian data analytics expert who worked with Cambridge Analytica and Kogan to devise and implement the scheme, showed a dossier of evidence about the data misuse to the Observer which appears to raise questions about their testimony. He has passed it to the National Crime Agency’s cybercrime unit and the Information Commissioner’s Office. It includes emails, invoices, contracts and bank transfers that reveal more than 50 million profiles – mostly belonging to registered US voters – were harvested from the site in one of the largest-ever breaches of Facebook data. Facebook on Friday said that it was also suspending Wylie from accessing the platform while it carried out its investigation, despite his role as a whistleblower.
At the time of the data breach, Wylie was a Cambridge Analytica employee, but Facebook described him as working for Eunoia Technologies, a firm he set up on his own after leaving his former employer in late 2014.
The evidence Wylie supplied to UK and US authorities includes a letter from Facebook’s own lawyers sent to him in August 2016, asking him to destroy any data he held that had been collected by GSR, the company set up by Kogan to harvest the profiles.
That legal letter was sent several months after the Guardianfirst reported the breach and days before it was officially announced that Bannon was taking over as campaign manager for Trump and bringing Cambridge Analytica with him.
“Because this data was obtained and used without permission, and because GSR was not authorised to share or sell it to you, it cannot be used legitimately in the future and must be deleted immediately,” the letter said.
Facebook did not pursue a response when the letter initially went unanswered for weeks because Wylie was travelling, nor did it follow up with forensic checks on his computers or storage, he said.
“That to me was the most astonishing thing. They waited two years and did absolutely nothing to check that the data was deleted. All they asked me to do was tick a box on a form and post it back.”
Paul-Olivier Dehaye, a data protection specialist, who spearheaded the investigative efforts into the tech giant, said: “Facebook has denied and denied and denied this. It has misled MPs and congressional investigators and it’s failed in its duties to respect the law.
“It has a legal obligation to inform regulators and individuals about this data breach, and it hasn’t. It’s failed time and time again to be open and transparent.”That legal letter was sent several months after the Guardianfirst reported the breach and days before it was officially announced that Bannon was taking over as campaign manager for Trump and bringing Cambridge Analytica with him.
“Because this data was obtained and used without permission, and because GSR was not authorised to share or sell it to you, it cannot be used legitimately in the future and must be deleted immediately,” the letter said.
Facebook did not pursue a response when the letter initially went unanswered for weeks because Wylie was travelling, nor did it follow up with forensic checks on his computers or storage, he said.
“That to me was the most astonishing thing. They waited two years and did absolutely nothing to check that the data was deleted. All they asked me to do was tick a box on a form and post it back.”
Paul-Olivier Dehaye, a data protection specialist, who spearheaded the investigative efforts into the tech giant, said: “Facebook has denied and denied and denied this. It has misled MPs and congressional investigators and it’s failed in its duties to respect the law.
“It has a legal obligation to inform regulators and individuals about this data breach, and it hasn’t. It’s failed time and time again to be open and transparent.”
A majority of American states have laws requiring notification in some cases of data breach, including California, where Facebook is based.
Facebook denies that the harvesting of tens of millions of profiles by GSR and Cambridge Analytica was a data breach. It said in a statement that Kogan “gained access to this information in a legitimate way and through the proper channels” but “did not subsequently abide by our rules” because he passed the information on to third parties.
Facebook said it removed the app in 2015 and required certification from everyone with copies that the data had been destroyed, although the letter to Wylie did not arrive until the second half of 2016. “We are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information. We will take whatever steps are required to see that this happens,” Paul Grewal, Facebook’s vice-president, said in a statement. The company is now investigating reports that not all data had been deleted.
Kogan, who has previously unreported links to a Russian university and took Russian grants for research, had a licence from Facebook to collect profile data, but it was for research purposes only. So when he hoovered up information for the commercial venture, he was violating the company’s terms. Kogan maintains everything he did was legal, and says he had a “close working relationship” with Facebook, which had granted him permission for his apps.
The Observer has seen a contract dated 4 June 2014, which confirms SCL, an affiliate of Cambridge Analytica, entered into a commercial arrangement with GSR, entirely premised on harvesting and processing Facebook data. Cambridge Analytica spent nearly $1m on data collection, which yielded more than 50 million individual profiles that could be matched to electoral rolls. It then used the test results and Facebook data to build an algorithm that could analyse individual Facebook profiles and determine personality traits linked to voting behaviour.
The algorithm and database together made a powerful political tool. It allowed a campaign to identify possible swing voters and craft messages more likely to resonate.
“The ultimate product of the training set is creating a ‘gold standard’ of understanding personality from Facebook profile information,” the contract specifies. It promises to create a database of 2 million “matched” profiles, identifiable and tied to electoral registers, across 11 states, but with room to expand much further.
At the time, more than 50 million profiles represented around a third of active North American Facebook users, and nearly a quarter of potential US voters. Yet when asked by MPs if any of his firm’s data had come from GSR, Nix said: “We had a relationship with GSR. They did some research for us back in 2014. That research proved to be fruitless and so the answer is no.”
Cambridge Analytica said that its contract with GSR stipulated that Kogan should seek informed consent for data collection and it had no reason to believe he would not.
GSR was “led by a seemingly reputable academic at an internationally renowned institution who made explicit contractual commitments to us regarding its legal authority to license data to SCL Elections”, a company spokesman said.
SCL Elections, an affiliate, worked with Facebook over the period to ensure it was satisfied no terms had been “knowingly breached” and provided a signed statement that all data and derivatives had been deleted, he said. Cambridge Analytica also said none of the data was used in the 2016 presidential election.
Steve Bannon’s lawyer said he had no comment because his client “knows nothing about the claims being asserted”. He added: “The first Mr Bannon heard of these reports was from media inquiries in the past few days.” He directed inquires to Nix.
Personal Injury Lawyer
Personal Injury Lawyer. Why do we need a lawyer? The reason we need a lawyer is because there is a national law which we must follow whenever we reside in a certain country. Every country has its own law for its citizen to uphold and follow. Without the law, the country would certainly crumble and fall. However, due to the complexity of the law in a country, common or regular citizen might not be that knowledgeable about the law. Therefore it is necessary for a common citizen to enlist the help of a lawyer to assist them in upholding the law against other people or usually described as “Filling the lawsuit”.
Due to the high demand of law case, there are many variations of Lawyers can be found nowadays. These are the variations of lawyer’s profession available currently:
· Corporate or Business Lawyer
· Finance or Securities Lawyer
· Intellectual Property Lawyer
· Family Lawyer
· Personal Injury Lawyer
· Other Types of Lawyers
In this article, we will be focusing on the Personal Injury Lawyer. Personal Injury Lawyer is the lawyer which provides the assistance of legal service towards people who have been injured due to the negligence of others. Other people might be from a company, individual, consumer products, or any kind of negligence committed by other party. The usual claim of lawsuit filed are car accidents, assault, workplace injuries, medical malpractice accident, and consumer product failure. The reason we need the Personal Injury Lawyer is to make sure that we will win when filling the lawsuit against a company or individual and managed to obtain the claim which should be paid by the people who committed the negligence. The Personal Injury Lawyer would guide us through the correct path of filling the lawsuit and inform us of the rights which we should be able to claim.
Is it possible for a regular lawyer or lawyer from other expertise to handle the personal injury case?
The answer is NO. The reason is because the case of personal injury require special expertise which could only be offered by the Personal Injury Lawyer. If the case is heading to a complicated stage, only a Personal Injury Lawyer would be able to help you win the lawsuit. The complicated stage is usually comprised of the other party also has its own Personal Injury Lawyer to fight against your own lawyer. If you only employed a regular lawyer, it is most likely that you would lose the lawsuit when fighting against a specialized Personal Injury Lawyer in a lawsuit case. Especially if the defendant of the lawsuit is a big company or insurance company. They most likely would employ highly experienced specialized Personal Injury Lawyer in defending their lawsuit case. Therefore it is also highly recommended for you to have your own Personal Injury Lawyer to fight for your case. Sometimes even the specialize injury lawyer has its more specific expertise are such as the medical malpractice case. The medical malpractice case require the lawyer no only to be highly knowledgeable about personal injury lawsuit but the lawyer is also required to possess the necessary knowledge about certain degree of medical knowledge. For example, the damage to the spinal cord or brain would become a very complex lawsuit area for the lawyer to be debating in. The person who has suffered the damage in spinal cord or brain might lose the ability to work in the possible future. So the person might lose the ability to make financial income to his/her family. Thus obviously the plaintiff would definitely filing a lawsuit towards the defendant and claiming lifelong compensation for the plaintiff family and also lifelong medical care. Therefore if the lawyer does not possess the required knowledge for the lawsuit, the defendant would surely win the lawsuit and the plaintiff would not only suffer the loss but also wasting the precious time and funds for paying the expensive price of a lawyer.
Most people tend to ignore the assistance offered by the Personal Injury Lawyer because of its expensive charges. However, because as of the reason mentioned above, filing lawsuit against big company would certainly lose because the big company usually would also employ highly experienced Personal Injury Lawyer to defend their company in order to avoid paying the claim sued by the plaintiff. Also by employing the Personal Injury Lawyer, it is also possible to gain more. The reason is that the Personal Injury Lawyer usually have more knowledge of ways and experience in handling the case to sue for more compensation rather than for you to do it by yourselves.
How to find a Personal Injury Lawyer?
How to find such good and experienced Personal Injury Lawyer? Try to ask around from fellow businessman who usually have to deal with the lawsuit cases. They might already have experience of being in the assistance of such lawyer. If you have a good friend in of a businessman, he might referred you of a good one. Another way of finding a good Personal Injury Lawyer is by asking fellow lawyers. If you have acquaintance of lawyer, then he or she might be able to refer you one good Personal Injury Lawyer as well.
One of the choice made possible by the current technology is by browsing for the potential Personal Injury Lawyer through online. This is one of the choice if you do not have acquaintances which could help you referring good lawyer. By browsing online, usually you can read the historical review of the lawyer’s prestige and the lawyer’s biography. The thing you need to keep in mind is that you need to make sure that you need to possess at least the “Surface” knowledge of a lawyer’s assistance and price. With the help of the Internet, you would be able to access directories which might aid you in this knowledge quest. Other thing you need to keep in mind is also make sure you have surveyed and compared all the available options of lawyers. Hopefully by reading this short article, you might be able to gain better understanding of employing the assistance of a Personal Injury Lawyer.
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All You Need to Know about Personal Injury Lawyer
Lawyer is a professional that is needed by people when they need advices relate to law problems they face. Lawyer is respected profession with promising career and salary. There are many kinds of lawyer professions with various specialties available out there to help you with your law problems and one of them is Personal Injury Lawyer. What is this kind of lawyer actually? What they do? And what education they take to gain their lawyer degree? Just keep reading this article to find out the answers.
Personal Injury Lawyer Overview
Personal Injury Lawyer or sometimes is called as trial lawyer or plaintiff lawyer is a kind of civil litigator whose job is providing legal representation to plaintiff alleging to both physical and physiological injuries suffered by their clients. The injuries can be resulted by careless or negligent acts conducted by another person, organization, or entity. This type of lawyer has specialization in law area which is known as tort law. This area of law includes private injuries and civil wrongs. Actions for bad faith breach of contract and defamations are some examples of the private injuries in law area. The lawyers function to help their clients to get compensations for the losses they have experienced. The personal losses can be in the form of pain and suffering, the loss of earning capacity because the plaintiff is unable to work anymore, emotional distress, loss of companionship or consortium, attorney fees, legal costs, and reasonable medical expenses both expected and presented. In addition, the lawyer for personal injury also works to protect their clients from being victimized by certain legal system or insurance companies. There are some types of personal injury cases include: auto accident, bicycle accident, aviation accident, burn injuries, brain injuries, animal bite injuries, construction accident, spinal cord injuries, medical malpractice, nursing home abuse, pedestrian accident, and many more.
Personal Injury Lawyer’s Skill and Education
Just like the other types of lawyer, the Personal Injury Lawyer also has promising career and income. Somebody who pursues this profession should have top ten legal skills include negotiation, oral advocacy, improve specialized knowledge in the field of personal injury law, and also client development. The education for this type of lawyer is following the same path as the other kinds of lawyer do. To be a lawyer of personal injury, someone should earn law degree. But it will not be the end of the education since the lawyer to – be should also pass a tough written bar examination. After passing from law school, personal injury attorneys can also get certificate to be a specialist in civil trial advocacy after completing a special program. The certified program should be approved by National Board of Legal Specialty Certification. This organization is a nonprofit one which gets approval from American Bar Association (ABA). The organization is founded to give board certifications for lawyers.
Personal Injury Lawyer is considered to be the most paid professionals on earth. A successful and popular lawyer for personal injury will be paid approximately up to seven digit salaries. Meanwhile the average lawyer will earn money approximately between $ 30.000 up to $ 300.000. How much the average plaintiff lawyers will be paid is depending on the practice size and where the personal injury location of the trial takes place.
What a Good Personal Injury Attorney Do
Personal Injury Lawyer is expected to handle case and performs the same tasks as the other litigators do. The personal injury attorney tasks include the screening potential clients, gathering evidence, researching case law, investigating claims, advocating at trial, drafting pleadings, evaluating the merits of their case, counseling clients, preparing for trial, motions and discovery, deposing witnesses, and interviewing witnesses. The plaintiff lawyers are also expected to specialize in cases with certain niche types due to the complexity of the personal injury lawsuits. For instance plaintiff lawyer who manages to handle medical malpractice case is allowed to specialize themselves in breach birth. Meanwhile, plaintiff lawyers may take specialization in ATV rollover accidents if they are handling litigate motor vehicle accidents.
Secret Tips to Find the Best Attorney for Your Personal Injury Case
There are some secret tips to help you find Personal Injury Lawyer to defend your case. Here they are:
1. Select the One Exclusively Does Personal Injury Law
The first secret is by picking up a lawyer who exclusively does personal injury law. This is because there are a lot of special practices and rules involved in personal injury law. That is why you will risk yourself if you decide to choose the one who does not specialize in personal injury case.
2. Choose A Lawyer with Long History in Taking His Clients’ Case to Courts If It Is Needed
Picking up a lawyer with a long history in taking his clients’ case to corts if needed can be a good tip to find the best Personal Injury Lawyer for you. This is because it means that the lawyer is not afraid of the courtroom and will do anything to defend your case no matter who you will fight against.
3. Picking Up the Lawyer with High Verdicts and Settlements
This is very necessary for you to select a plaintiff lawyer which has good reputation in making verdict and settlements. The attorney with high verdict or settlements you choose will give you bigger chance to get higher compensation upon your losses.
4. Select A Lawyer Who Becomes an Active Member of State and National Trial Lawyer Groups
This is very important to use the service of plaintiff lawyer that becomes the active member of State and National Trial Lawyer Groups. It can be a great way to help you keep up to date since there are many attorneys out there who have willingness to do anything, even dirty acts to win their cases.
5. Choose a Lawyer with Sufficient Resources
This is very important to choose a lawyer with sufficient resources to seriously defend your case. The lack of resources from your attorney will reduce your possibility to win your case.
