Privacy News Update: Cambridge Analytica and Facebook

November 10, 2020 March 19, 2018 By Eric Stroshane 2 Comments

On March 17 – 18, 2018, the Guardian, the New York Times, and Britain’s Channel Four published stories detailing how Cambridge Analytica employed a third-party researcher to harvest 50 million Facebook users’ profiles for use in political campaigns without the consent of the users. Below we’ve compiled links to those stories, public reaction to the news, and provided information and links about privacy self defense. (Last updated on March 27).

Initial News Stories and Investigative Reports:

Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach | The Guardian

How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions | New York Times

Whistleblower reveals to Channel 4 News data grab of 50 million Facebook profiles by Cambridge Analytica |Channel4News (United Kingdom)

A Researcher’s Quiz App Deceptively Harvested Data for Political Research, Facebook Alleges | Adweek

Facebook has suspended Cambridge Analytica, the data analytics firm that helped Donald Trump get elected| ReCode
Cambridge Analytica used Facebook data it promised Facebook it had deleted, the company claims.

Cambridge Analytica Took 50m Facebook Users’ Data—And Both Companies Owe Answers | Wired

Legislative and Regulatory Response

Facebook’s Role in Data Misuse Sets Off Storms on Two Continents | New York Times

Facebook’s Zuckerberg comes under fire from UK, US lawmakers | AP News

Facebook may have violated FTC privacy deal, say former federal officials, triggering risk of massive fines | The Washington Post

Cambridge Analytica: Warrant sought to inspect company | BBC News

Britain’s information commissioner plans to seek a warrant to access servers of data mining firm Cambridge Analytica | ABC News

Massachusetts launches probe into Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data | The Hill

Senate Commerce presses Facebook, Cambridge Analytic for answers on data | The Hill

Facebook under pressure as U.S., EU urge probes of data practices | Reuters

FTC is reportedly investigating Facebook’s use of personal data | Endgadget

Facebook Faces Growing Pressure Over Data and Privacy Inquiries | New York Times

EU leaders tell social networks to guarantee users’ privacy | Reuters

The Little Regulator at the Heart of Facebook’s Big Data Dispute | Bloomberg

Facebook investors sue the social media giant over voter-profile harvesting | Los Angeles Times

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower to testify to House Democrats on Facebook data operation | The Washington Post

Calls for Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress are getting louder | Recode

Silicon Valley’s Regulatory Exceptionalism Comes to an End | Lawfare

In Wake of Cambridge Analytica Saga, Class Actions Roll in Against Facebook | Law.com

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica hit with first state lawsuit | Endgadget

Facebook accused of massive fraud in new lawsuit filed by Cook County (IL) | Ars Technica

Statement by the Acting Director of FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices | FTC.gov

FTC is investigating Facebook over privacy practices | AP News

PA Attorney General Shapiro Leads Bipartisan Coalition of State AGs in Demanding Answers from Facebook | Press Release, attorneygeneral.gov

Facebook’s Response

Self-described whistleblower suspended by Facebook after Cambridge Analytica reports | The Hill

Zuckerberg, Facing Facebook’s Worst Crisis Yet, Pledges Better Privacy | The New York Times

Mark Zuckerberg Talks To Wired About Facebook’s Privacy Problem | Wired

Mark Zuckerberg’s Reckoning: ‘This Is a Major Trust Issue’ | The New York Times

Mark Zuckerberg says he’s ‘open’ to testifying to Congress, fixes will cost ‘many millions’ and he ‘feels really bad’ | Recode

Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will audit thousands of apps after ‘breach of trust’ | The Washington Post

Zuckerberg: Maybe tech should face some regulations | The Hill

What Would Regulating Facebook Look Like? | Wired

Facebook ads apologize for Cambridge Analytica scandal | AP/Minneapolis Star-Tribune

The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica apology tour continues, with full-page ads in major newspapers | ReCode

Public Response

For Many Facebook Users, a ‘Last Straw’ That Led Them to Quit | The New York Times

Consumer Reports to Facebook: Notify every person who had private data compromised | Consumers Report

Next Worry for Facebook: Disenchanted Users | Wall Street Journal

Mozilla stops Facebook ads amid data privacy concerns | The Hill

Mozilla is ditching Facebook ads in wake of Cambridge Analytica scandal | The Inquirer

Sonos Pulls Facebook Ads Following the Cambridge Analytica Scandal | Adweek

Apple’s Tim Cook Calls for More Regulations on Data Privacy | Bloomberg

Apple’s Tim Cook and IBM’s Ginni Rometty think Facebook should see greater regulation in the wake of data breach | CNBC

Americans less likely to trust Facebook than rivals on personal data | Reuters

Facebook data leak scandal won’t deter advertisers unless two things happen, industry insiders say | CNBC

Facebook stock plunges 6% after FTC launches probe of data scandal | CNBC

Poll: Facebook is the least trusted custodian of private information, majority of Americans do not trust it | BoingBoing

Here’s How Congress Should Respond to Facebook/Cambridge Analytica | Public Knowledge

Americans’ complicated feelings about social media in an era of privacy concerns | Pew Research Center

Facebook has lost $80 billion in market value since its data scandal | CNN Money

News Updates and News Reviews after 3/18/2018

Report: Cambridge Analytica trying to block exposé by U.K.’s Channel 4 | CBS News

Cambridge Analytica Execs Caught Discussing Extortion And Fake News | Wired

Alex Stamos, Facebook Data Security Chief, To Leave Amid Outcry | New York Times

Whistleblower: Cambridge Analytica met with Lewandowski before Trump campaign launch | The Hill

Cambridge Analytica Suspends C.E.O. Amid Facebook Data Scandal | New York Times

‘Utterly horrifying’: ex-Facebook insider says covert data harvesting was routine | The Guardian

Cambridge Analytica CEO claims influence on U.S. election, Facebook questioned | Reuters

Everything You Need to Know About Facebook and Cambridge Analytica | Wired

‘A grand illusion’: seven days that shattered Facebook’s facade | The Guardian

Facebook scraped call, text message data for years from Android phones | Ars Technica

News Updates for March 30, 2018

Facebook Introduces Central Page for Privacy and Security Settings | The New York Times

It’s Time to Make Our Privacy Tools Easier to Find | Facebook
Facebook Announces Changes to Privacy Settings in Response to Cambridge Analytica | Public Knowledge
Zuckerberg’s Just Doing What He’d Have Been Forced to Do | Bloomberg

Lawsuits Against Facebook Over Data Privacy Issues Are Piling Up | The Street

Mark Zuckerberg has decided to testify before Congress | CNN

What lies beneath: The things Facebook knows go beyond user data | Ars Technica

Facebook Isn’t Just Violating Our Privacy | The New York Times

The U.S. Government is finally scrambling to regulate Facebook | The Intercept

People Are Losing Trust in Facebook. Here’s Why They’re Staying On It Anyway. | Slate

Facebook Is Making Big Changes to Its Relationship With Data Brokers | Fortune

Cambridge Analytica and a Moral Reckoning in Silicon Valley | The New Yorker

Attorney General Shapiro Leads Bipartisan Coalition of State AGs in Demanding Answers from Facebook | Press Release

Analysis and Opinion

Don’t Delete Facebook. Do Something About It. | Siva Vaidhyanthan, The New York Times

Facebook Ignites Debate Over Third-Party Access to User Data | Wall Street Journal

Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and the Revelations of Open Secrets | The New Yorker

Exploiting Facebook data to influence voters? That’s a feature, not a bug, of the social network | Los Angeles Times

Facebook Owes You More Than This | Wired

Facebook’s Surveillance Machine | New York Times

What Took Facebook So Long? | The Atlantic

Why We’re Not Calling the Cambridge Analytica Story a ‘Data Breach’ | Motherboard

Facebook says you ‘own’ all the data you post. Not even close, say privacy experts | Los Angeles Times

How many Facebook-fueled abuses need to happen before the government takes online privacy seriously? | Los Angeles Times

What privacy pros can learn from the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica revelations | International Association of Privacy Professionals

The Long History of Computer Science and Psychology Comes Into View: Understanding that legacy can help us stop the next Cambridge Analytica. | Slate

The Problem Isn’t Cambridge Analytica: It’s Facebook | Forbes

Cambridge Analytica case highlights Facebook’s data riches | Financial Times

One Way Facebook Can Stop the Next Cambridge Analytica | Slate

The Cambridge Analytica affair reveals Facebook’s “Transparency Paradox” | MIT Technology Review

Old Facebook got away with murder, New Facebook not so much | Columbia Journalism Review

The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica fallout continues. Data breach? No. Pretty bad? Yes | Nieman Lab

Given Facebook’s Privacy Backlash, Why Aren’t We Angrier With the Broadband Industry? | Motherboard

How Researchers Learned to Use Facebook ‘Likes’ to Sway Your Thinking | New York Times

Yet Another Lesson from the Cambridge Analytica Fiasco: Remove the Barriers to User Privacy Control | Electronic Frontier Foundation/Cory Doctorow

Why have we given up our privacy to Facebook and other sites so willingly? | The Guardian

Facebook’s rules for accessing user data lured more than just Cambridge Analytica | The Washington Post

Silicon Valley Has Failed to Protect Our Data. Here’s How to Fix It | Bloomberg News

Facebook and the endless string of worst-case scenarios | TechCrunch

Cambridge Analytica and Our Lives Inside the Surveillance Machine | The New Yorker

Commentary: Stop freaking out about Cambridge Analytica — targeted ads are great | Chicago Tribune

Computer science faces an ethics crisis. The Cambridge Analytica scandal proves it. | Boston Globe

Mark Zuckerberg’s Trust Problem | Wired

The Problem with #DeleteFacebook | Slate

Don’t Delete Facebook, Regulate It | The Nation

How Facebook made it impossible to delete Facebook | Vox

Is It Even Possible To Protect Your Privacy On Facebook? | NPR

My Cow Game Extracted Your Facebook Data | The Atlantic

How to Fix Facebook | The New Yorker

Silicon Valley played by a different set of rules. Facebook’s crisis could put an end to that | Los Angeles Times

The shady data-gathering tactics used by Cambridge Analytica were an open secret to online marketers. I know, because I was one | The Verge

The Cambridge Analytica Data Apocalypse Was Predicted in 2007 | Wired

Facebook is too big to fail | Quartz

Cambridge Analytica and a Moral Reckoning in Silicon Valley | The New Yorker

Cambridge Analytica Scandal Raises New Ethical Questions About Microtargeting | NPR

Data misuse is a feature, not a bug—and it’s plaguing our entire culture. | The Atlantic

The new technology that aspires to #DeleteFacebook for good | The Washington Post

How Calls for Privacy May Upend Business for Facebook and Google | The New York Times

Privacy Self-Defense

Tools to Protect User Privacy | Choose Privacy Week

How To Change Your Facebook Settings To Opt Out of Platform API Sharing | Electronic Frontier Foundation

A recipe for the deliberately obscured task of changing your Facebook settings to opt out of “platform” sharing | BoingBoing

How to protect your Facebook privacy – or delete yourself completely | The Guardian

How to manipulate Facebook and Twitter instead of letting them manipulate you | MIT Technology Review

How to Protect Yourself (and Your Friends) on Facebook | New York Times

Facebook is experimenting on you. Here’s how you can run an experiment on it. | The Washington Post

The Cambridge Analytica Mess Is a Good Reminder to Check Which Sketchy Apps You’ve Allowed to Access Your Facebook Profile |Slate

How to Quickly Delete Lots of Old Facebook Posts | How-To Geek

How to Delete Your Phone Contacts from Facebook | Lifehacker

What to look for in your Facebook data – and how to find it | Wired

Want to Purge Your Social Media Timelines? Can You Spare a Few Hours? | The New York Times

Here’s how to download all your data from Facebook. It might be a wake-up call. | The Washington Post

Apple Revamps Privacy Controls to Comply With New European Law | Bloomberg

Apple to roll out new privacy features to comply with EU rules | C|Net

Facebook Introduces Central Page for Privacy and Security Settings | The New York Times

Filed Under: News and Updates

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Guidelines for Private Online Searching & Browsing Julie Oborny
There are few options for searching without being tracked. To search anonymously from home requires tech-savvy and money. This is something many people do not have. Libraries should help any user access information anonymously. Guidelines A group of library privacy experts created the following guidelines. Use them to bolster your efforts. Starting a Computer or Wi-Fi Session Offer Guest User Options: Allow users to log in to public computers and Wi-Fi without using their personal library card. This can be facilitated through the use of guest passes. Do not require identification or keep logs of users who check out a guest pass or sign in as a guest. Avoid Paper Sign-up Sheets: Do NOT have paper sign-up sheets for the computers. If there is no other option, practice the following: Staff should always be in control of these paper sign-up sheets Only require the minimum amount of data needed for reserving a computer. Shred paper sheets at the end of the day. Filtering Software No Logging: Filtering software should not log user activity. Ensure and verify that this is not happening on filtered computers. Guest Passes: If disabling logging is not possible, offer a guest pass at no charge. Age Data: Do not capture proof of age when removing filters. Just verify. Erasing Computer Sessions Public Computers: Set public computers to load a fresh computer image after each user session. Software example: Deep Freeze. End sessions automatically if the user forgets to log out at the end of a session. Circulated/Loaned Devices: Reset or reimage borrowed devices at point of check-in. Examples of devices: laptops, tablets, and other mobile devices. Session Logs: Do not store logs of users’ computer or Wi-Fi sessions for longer than 24 hours. Delete computer reservation and Wi-Fi session logs that contain personal information. Include this practice as a closing activity. Do not collect information about user activity during a public computer or Wi-Fi session. Activity examples: applications used and web browser activity. Printers: Clear the print queue for the print management system daily. Physical Protections Physical Space: Arrange the physical library space for privacy. People should be able to use personal technology without observation. If security cameras are required inside the buildings, optimize for privacy. Check to make sure they are not pointed toward screens or other places where they may record library use. Privacy Screens: Provide easily accessible privacy screens. These screens should be available for any user who needs one. If possible, install privacy screens on all public computers. Shredding: Shred print-outs left at the printer. Provide access to shredders for users. Browsers & Search Tools Default Search: Set DuckDuckGo as the default search for all browsers. Default Browsers: Set the default browser on computers to Brave or Firefox. Anonymous Search with Tor: Install the Tor browser on all public access computers. Provide guides for users about how to use Tor for anonymous searching. Training For Users Guides: Provide guides to users who wish to remain anonymous online. Examples: Personal Accounts: Do not log in to any personal accounts during the entire session. Examples: Google Amazon Facebook Learning Management Systems Private vs. Public: Treat school or work cloud-document services as public record. Don’t use these services to keep track of sensitive information. Search Tools: Use a privacy-focused search engine, such as DuckDuckGo. Mobile Browsers: Download privacy-focused browsers on mobile devices. Examples: Firefox Focus Brave Tor DuckDuckGo Tech Help: Assist users in installing encrypted messaging apps, such as Signal. Programs: Device Settings: Teach users how to turn off the following on their devices: Personalized advertising or ad tracking (iOS and Android) Location sharing Unused and unnecessary app permissions VPNs: Teach users about virtual private networks (VPNs): How to pick one. Refer to https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/choosing-vpn-thats-right-you How to install one. This depends on the VPN. How to use one. This depends on the VPN. Attendance: Allow people to attend these training programs anonymously. Alternatives: Provide digital and physical resources for those who are unable or unwilling to attend in person. Example: https://sec.eff.org/ For Staff New Hires: Include privacy training as part of new-hire onboarding. Ongoing: Have regular privacy training for library workers. State Laws: Review state laws on confidentiality of library use data. Do this with all library workers. Communication: Share updates on changes in privacy issues. Do this especially for state and national laws.
Data Privacy Week – January 24-28, 2022 Stacy Tomaszewski
This year, the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCSA) has expanded its Data Privacy Day to a week! Data Privacy Day started in 2008 as a North American complement to Data Protection Day in Europe. The purpose of Data Privacy Week is to help “spread awareness about online privacy and [educate] citizens on how to manage their personal information and keep it secure” and to “ [encourage] businesses to respect data and be more transparent about how they collect and use customer data.”
Book review of ‘Cyber Privacy: Who Has Your Data and Why You Should Care’ Virginia Dressler
“Data, I’ve found, is becoming like the weather; it’s something that almost anyone can talk about.” Cyber Privacy by April Falcon Doss is a timely title on so many key issues around data privacy in the online world– And Doss is well-positioned to write on this topic, with her thirteen years working at the NSA and later working in a private sector practice focusing on cyber-security and privacy issues. I found this title to be a thoughtful and well-written perspective, primarily centered on the U.S.