# The myth of Privacy in the world of the Internet: The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Incident
#### Arishma Kashyap

With more and more people entering the realm of the internet and Social Networks, there is a growing concern among Netizens about their online privacy. One such player in the no. of social networks we have is Facebook, which boasts the highest number of users among all the social networks in market. Recently, Facebook came under heavy criticism over its data-leak scandal with a political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Facebook exposed data of over 87 million users to a researcher who worked at Cambridge Analytica. This set of personal information was against Facebook's policies on data privacy and this scandal let's us think, "Are we doing a big mistake trusting Internet giants like Facebook?"

## The simple version of the story

Data of over 87 million Facebook Users<br/>
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Cambridge Analytica worked on the data and gathered data for US General Elections<br/>
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Trump's Campaign benefited from the results produced by Cambridge Analytica and thus helped in securing the Presidential seat

## The Build Up to the Scandal
Cambridge Analytica was created when Steve Bannon approached conservative megadonors Rebekah and Robert Mercer to fund a political consulting firm. Bannon became vice president of Cambridge Analytica, and during the 2016 election, he reached out to the Trump campaign to introduce the two sides.

Bannon, of course, eventually became a senior adviser to Trump before he was fired in August 2017. According to a former Cambridge Analytica employee, the firm got the data from Facebook through researcher Aleksandr Kogan, a Russian American who worked at the University of Cambridge.

## How did Kogan use Facebook to harvest up to 87 million user profiles?

Kogan built a Facebook app that was a quiz. It not only collected data from people who took the quiz, but it exposed a loophole in Facebook API that allowed it to collect data from the Facebook friends of the quiz takers as well.Facebook prohibited the selling of data collected with this method, but Cambridge Analytica sold the data anyway.

## Why this is a Facebook scandal more than a Cambridge Analytica one?

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a response to this scandal, "I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it."

But former Facebook employees have said that there's a tension between the security team and the legal/policy team in terms of how they prioritize user protection in their decision-making.

"The people whose job is to protect the user always are fighting an uphill battle against the people whose job is to make money for the company," Sandy Parakilas, who worked on the privacy side at Facebook, told the New York Times.

Now, there is a decent chance Cambridge Analytica's work didn't actually do much to elect Trump; the firm's reputation in the political consulting community is less than stellar.

But this highlights a larger debate over how much users can trust Facebook with their data. Facebook allowed a third-party developer to engineer an application for the sole purpose of gathering data. And the developer was able to exploit a loophole to gather information on not only people who used the app but all their friends - without them knowing.

Still, it's Cambridge Analytica paying the price today after losing multiple clients after the last several months of unflattering publicity.

## Conclusion

As we have seen, the Facebook app that was used to get data from the Users was actually more than it said it was. How should the regulations be changed to protect online privacy then? We must be aware of what we are doing online. Any security measures suggested by the online platforms should not be ignored. Data leaks can come at any time and as some wise man has said “Prevention is better than cure”, we must take precautions beforehand. Let’s look forward towards a new, secure and private internet.