Facebook 'ugly truth' memo haunts firm

Cambridge Analytica data on as many as 50 million Facebook users may still be out in the wild, according to a report yesterday from the UK’s Channel 4 News.

 The news organization says it has seen a cache of data dating back to the 2014 survey results Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan collected with his app “thisisyourdigitallife.” Kogan later sold that data to Cambridge Analytica, which had connections to the Trump campaign and may have used it to inform election ad targeting.

 The data in question here “details 136,000 individuals in the US state of Colorado, along with each person’s personality and psychological profile,” Channel 4 reports. This would appear to refute Cambridge Analytica’s claims as the scandal unfolded over the last two weeks that it deleted the Facebook data back in 2015 and is not guilty of any wrongdoing.

Cambridge Analytica is currently under investigation from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, and the company has volunteered to undergo an independent third-party audit to clear its name.

Facebook’s vice president and deputy general counsel, told Channel 4 in a statement. “The ICO has launched an investigation into Cambridge Analytica and we are assisting with this. We want to assure people that we have suspended Cambridge Analytica from Facebook.”