Cambridge Analytica: Facebook material might still be on SCL servers

An independent investigation into the Cambridge Analytica (CA) data privacy scandal has published report affirming that some traces of metadata from Facebook material (actual or historic) might still, in some form, be on SCL Elections servers.

The report, however, revealed that data analytics firm, CA, an offspring of SCL Elections, had destroyed the Facebook users data it received from Professor Aleksandr Kogan’s Global Science Research (“GSR”).

TheNewsGuru reports Professor Kogan’s GSR firm had developed ‘This Is Your Digital Life’ personality quiz app with which over 87 million Facebook users data was allegedly harvested.

Professor Kogan then sold the over 87 million Facebook users data to CA; however, the investigation has revealed the Facebook users data GSR actually sold to CA and the cost of the data.

The investigators, Julian Malins Q. C. and Linda Hudson, said the former CEO of CA, Alexander Nix, provided an “undated certificate” as proof that the data analytics firm actually destroyed the Facebook data.

According to the investigators, Nix signed the certificate in the spring of 2017, “Which states that all Facebook data gathered as part of and from the GSR/Dr Kogan’s app and received from or on behalf of GSR, and which was connected to Facebook, had been accounted for and that it had been permanently deleted and destroyed”.

TheNewsGuru gathers that this included dropping all database tables, and deleting the raw data (stored as csv) from CA’s encrypted fileserver.

According to the investigators, Nix also certified, undertakings supported by an internal audit, that no third party, at any time, had access to the data derived from the GSR app.

However, the investigators suggested that the traces of metadata from the Facebook material (actual or historic) might still, in some form, be on SCL Elections servers, and that a forensic audit is being considered.

“In order to confirm SCL’s and CA’s position that no Facebook data derived from GSR, is currently held by either SCL or CA, a forensic audit is being organized, but this has not yet been undertaken,” the investigators said in their report.

The report added that after SCL decided that the GSR data was not proving useful, SCL undertook to build its own OCEAN models and SCL generated its own survey data with individual’s consent on its own website and from CINT.