Is Cambridge Analytica a Big Story? Part II

Part II: What prompted this drama?

Click here for Part I, here for Part III and here for Part IV.

The main question: deleted or not deleted?

Now, that we’ve covered how the media extensively covered Cambridge Analytica for the past three years and made huge mistakes in how they described the situation, it’s time to ask, “why did this happen?”

If there’s a paper trail since 2015 about Cambridge Analytica, why did this explode last Friday?

Due to all the moving parts to this story — Facebook scrutiny, RUSSIA!, Trump, privacy concerns, data breaches!, and the rapid rise in Silicon Valley hatred — the crux of this story has gotten lost. What is the central issue?

It all comes down to one question: did Cambridge Analytica delete or not delete the data they pulled from Facebook throug 2015?

While news about Cambridge Analytica is well-known, it wasn’t until this weekend that the New York Times and The Guardian published an interview with a former employee on the record. The Times claims:

But copies of the data still remain beyond Facebook’s control. The Times viewed a set of raw data from the profiles Cambridge Analytica obtained.

While Mr. Nix has told lawmakers that the company does not have Facebook data, a former employee said that he had recently seen hundreds of gigabytes on Cambridge servers, and that the files were not encrypted.

The the data was legally obtained — hence not a “breach” —but, Facebook determined after the 2015 story in The Guardian that SCL had violated their policies for API usage by passing the data onto a third party. They asked SCL to delete it and provide evidence that they deleted it.

The Intercept expose, published March 2017, maintained the Facebook line that the data had been deleted:

Shortly after The Guardian published its 2015 article, Facebook contacted Global Science Research and requested that it delete the data it had taken from Facebook users. Facebook’s policies give Facebook the right to deletedata gathered by any app deemed to be “negatively impacting the Platform.” The company believes that Kogan and SCL complied with the request, which was made during the Republican primary, before Cambridge Analytica switched over from Ted Cruz’s campaign to Donald Trump’s. It remains unclear what was ultimately done with the Facebook data, or whether any models or algorithms derived from it wound up being used by the Trump campaign.

In public, Facebook continues to maintain that whatever happened during the run-up to the election was business as usual. “Our investigation to date has not uncovered anything that suggests wrongdoing,” a Facebook spokesperson told The Intercept.

The New York Times investigation and interview with Christopher Wylie appears to confirm what The Intercept reported:

Facebook verified the leak and — without publicly acknowledging it — sought to secure the information, efforts that continued as recently as August 2016. That month, lawyers for the social network reached out to Cambridge Analytica contractors. “This data was obtained and used without permission,” said a letter that was obtained by the Times. “It cannot be used legitimately in the future and must be deleted immediately.”

Mr. Grewal, the Facebook deputy general counsel, said in a statement that both Dr. Kogan and “SCL Group and Cambridge Analytica certified to us that they destroyed the data in question.”

Again, it is bad reporting to describe it as a leak, but Facebook maintains that they continued to request that Cambridge Analytica delete the data through August 2016. It appears that Facebook became aware that not all data was deleted because of the Times investigation:

But copies of the data still remain beyond Facebook’s control. The Times viewed a set of raw data from the profiles Cambridge Analytica obtained.

While Mr. Nix has told lawmakers that the company does not have Facebook data, a former employee said that he had recently seen hundreds of gigabytes on Cambridge servers, and that the files were not encrypted.

This is the central question: Did Cambridge Analytica delete the data?

Until the investigations are over — and we are facing investigations in both the UK and US, we likely won’t know for sure. The evidence that the New York Times obtained is what triggered Facebook to suspend Cambridge Analytica/SCL in an effort to get ahead of this story.

On Monday, after the outrage grew over the weekend, Facebook announced that they hired an outside firm to audit Cambridge Analytica to see what data remained. The company agreed to comply.

However, CNBC reports that British authorities told Stroz Friedberg, the digital forensics firm hired by Facebook to conduct the audit, to stand down:

But in an updated statement later that day, Facebook said: “Independent forensic auditors from Stroz Friedberg were on site at Cambridge Analytica’s London office this evening. At the request of the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office, which has announced it is pursuing a warrant to conduct its on-site investigation, the Stroz Friedberg auditors stood down.”

With investigations in two different countries, an internal audit, and potential criminal charges against Alexander Nix, the CEO of Cambridge Analytica for attempting to bribe and entrap elected officials, this story will be around for a while.

In Part III, learn about Cambridge Analytica’s exaggerations about their work and success rate.