Cambridge Analytica is said to have used the data of over 50 million Facebook users to help US President Donald Trump win the US 2016 Polls. Now, the latest is that the company is said to have helped the official campaign backing Britain’s exit from the European Union by having access to data collected inappropriately from millions of Facebook users.
Christopher Wylie, a data analytics expert who worked for Cambridge Analytica from 2014 to 2015 has confirmed this news and said that the database of the alleged firm was used during the official vote leave campaign which garnered 51.9 % of voters ultimately backing Brexit. And the fees charged for all this activity was over 625,000 pounds or $886,000.
In another story related to the same controversy, Facebook is said to have collected users call logs and text messages without the knowledge of Android users as the company’s much renowned operating system lacked basic security controls.
Technically, Google used to relax app permission rules for its developers till 2015. It was during this time did Facebook collect the call logs, text messages and user info of the users who installed its Messenger app or Facebook Lite and sent it to
Cambridge Analytica which is now a defunct company.
Security experts say that Apple devices are very strict when it comes to the privacy factor of its users. So, iPhone users weren’t subjected to having their mobile calls and texts logged by Facebook apps due to rigid security restrictions.
According to a source from Daily Mail, Google and the Mark Zuckerberg led company even exchange the data of their respective users to server up advertisements tailored to users’ interest.
Thus, the controversy surrounding Facebook is deteriorating to such an extent that it is slowing losing its technology partners which include Mozilla, Microsoft, and Apple who could soon prevent their respective users from accessing Facebook and its relative services via their platform.
