‘Facebook suspected Cambridge Analytica malpractice before it became news’

Facebook already suspected Cambridge Analytica of unauthorized data mining before the scandal became public. This is according to information submitted to the court by the Washington DC Attorney General this week and which has since been confirmed by Facebook.

The new documents filed in court report an email conversation between senior executives at Facebook discussing “improper data collection practices.” The conversation dates back to September 2015, while The Guardian newspaper first published an article about Cambridge Analytica in December of that year. The real scandal only erupted in 2018.

Facebook now admits, according to The Guardian, that it was aware of concerns about Cambridge Analytica’s practices among its employees, but insists it has “deceived absolutely no one.” According to a Facebook spokesperson, the email conversation was about a different matter at Cambridge Analytica and not about Aleksandr Kogan’s activities. Kogan is the Cambridge University professor who resells data from some 87 million users to Cambridge Analytica through his personal quiz app.

Or as the Facebook spokesperson puts it: “In September 2015, our employees heard rumors that Cambridge Analytica was mining data, something that is unfortunately common in internet services today. In December 2015, we learned through the media that Kogan had sold data. to Cambridge Analytica, after which we took action. Those are two different things.”