Facebook suspends Canadian consulting company in the context of Cambridge scandal

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 Facebook also suspends AggregateIQ, a political consultancy firm from Canada, after Cambridge Analytica. That company would have links with Cambridge Analytica and its parent company SCL and may have also received Facebook data without permission, according to Facebook.

Facebook is conducting an investigation into the Canadian company, writes the Canadian National Observer . The whistleblower who originally published the story about Cambridge Analytica, also claims that this company used the Facebook data to help influence public opinion about the Brexit referendum. That claims a whistleblower from within the Brexit campaign as well. AggregateIQ denies that it has any links with Cambridge Analytica and parent company SCL and that it has held the dates of Cambridge
The newspaper also reports that the Canadian privacy authorities are looking into the company and finding out whether the company has privacy laws has violated or used unauthorized certain data. They do not want to comment on ongoing investigations.
Earlier in March, the story came to light that the British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica had received a data set without permission for the data from 50 million Facebook users . This happened via a Facebook app that collected the data of its users, but also of their friends. The data would have been used in the Donald Trump election campaign. This data would also be shared with AggregateIQ, who used it again for the Leave campaign of the Brexit referendum.
According to estimates, the Cambridge Analytica dataset contains data from 2.7 million EU citizens. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is meanwhile preparing for his testimony for the US Congress, which is going to question him about his involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

 

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