UPDATED 01:04 EDT / MAY 03 2018

BIG DATA

Cambridge Analytica shuts down, but probes of its Facebook data use continue

Cambridge Analytica, the company behind the data harvesting scandal that affected as many as 87 million Facebook users, Wednesday announced it will cease all operations in the U.K. and the U.S.

The British political consulting company said in a press release that because of what had happened, it had been “vilified” in the media, although it claimed that not all the reporting was factual. Being a cause célèbre of this kind, though, was enough to drive away all of its customers, according to the company.

“I had full access to all members of staff and documents in the preparation of my report,” company attorney Julian Malins, said in the statement. “My findings entirely reflect the amazement of the staff, on watching the television programs and reading the sensationalistic reporting, that any of these media outlets could have been talking about the company for which they worked. Nothing of what they heard or read resonated with what they actually did for a living.”

Nonetheless, the company is being investigated, accused by some for influencing the U.S. presidential election and also affecting how the U.K. public thought about the Brexit referendum.

Damian Collins, the chair of the Commons committee for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said that in spite of the closure, the company will still be subject to a thorough investigation. Similar sentiments were echoed in the U.S.

“We’ve got to make sure this isn’t at attempt to run and hide, that these companies are not closing down to try to avoid them being rigorously investigated over the allegations that are being made against them,” Collins told the BBC.

The Information Commissioner’s Office said that it will examine the closure and keep an eye on any companies that may look like a successor. It’s now thought that other companies were harvesting data similarly to Cambridge Analytica, mirroring what one whistleblower said in that the breach was bigger than first thought.

“The ICO will continue its civil and criminal investigations and will seek to pursue individuals and directors as appropriate and necessary even where companies may no longer be operating,” said the office.

Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy told the Washington Post as much, stating that what Cambridge Analytica did is “emblematic of how data-driven digital marketing occurs worldwide. Americans are currently helpless to stop the massive flows of their personal information now regularly fed to Google, Facebook, ISPs and many others.”

The New York Times reported that executives at Cambridge Analytica have made moves to create a new form called Emerdata, which has ties to the controversial security firm formerly called Blackwater, renamed Xe Services after Blackwater contractors were convicted of killing civilians in Iraq. The Times said Emerdata is “a way of rolling up the two companies under one new banner.”

Image: shopcatalog via flickr

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