Cambridge Analytica raids
"You aren’t necessarily aware that when you tell me what music you listen to or what TV shows you watch, you are telling me some of your deepest and most personal attributes."
Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, Campaign Magazine February 2018.
So many of us have social media accounts. We may not think about privacy when we’re liking a post or completing a quiz. But an Information Commissioner’s Office investigation that began in May 2017 found that detailed pictures of our online lives were being used by political parties. They were using this information to help target small groups of voters with specific adverts.
What became known as the Cambridge Analytica scandal showed how mainstream people’s privacy rights had become. It spawned a Netflix documentary, a TV dramatisation, political inquiries in both the House of Commons and the American Congress and was a dinner table topic across the globe.
Christopher Wylie, a former employee of Cambridge Analytica and whistleblower, first shared information about the company’s misuse of data. He revealed that the personal information of millions of Facebook users was collected through an app called “This Is Your Digital Life” and then shared with political campaigners.
Our investigation into this story was the largest of its type by any data protection authority. The investigation involved online social media platforms like Facebook, data brokers such as Experian, Equifax and Call Credit, analytics firms, academic institutions and all the major UK political parties.
The scandal sparked an increased public interest in privacy and how the information that we give away may reveal more than we intend.