Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal: Ethical Concerns and Mitigation

Running head: ICT Professional Practices and Ethics
ICT PROFESSIONAL PRACTICES AND ETHICS
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Cambridge Analytical Scandal1
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Background of Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal:.................................................................3
Doing Ethics Technique Analysis:.............................................................................................4
What is going on?...................................................................................................................4
What are the facts?.................................................................................................................5
What are the issues?...............................................................................................................5
Who is affected?.....................................................................................................................5
What are the ethical issue?.....................................................................................................6
What can be done about it?....................................................................................................6
What are the options?.............................................................................................................7
Which option is the best and why?........................................................................................7
Analysis of the Situation form the perspective of ACS Code of Ethics:...................................7
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................9
Bibliography:............................................................................................................................11

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Introduction:
The fundamental aim of this report is to successfully elaborate the case scenario of
Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal. In order to support the mentioned elaboration in this
report it has effectively discussed the background of the mentioned case scenario by relating
it with the possible ethical concern. Followed by this it has also successfully elaborated the
ethical scenario with the perspective of Doing ethics technique analysis in order to effectively
analyze the ethical issues related to the activities of the stakeholders present in the mentioned
case scenario. Followed by this it will also discuss about the case scenario by relating it with
the ACS codes of ethics as well as the ICT professional ethics. Along with that it will
conclude by stating the ethical issue as well as it will effectively recommend the possible
mitigation process which will surely help to mitigate the raised issue.
Background of Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal:
After successfully analyzing the case scenario of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal it
has been noticed that this scandal was one of the most popular political scandal that has
happened in the past years. The fundamental objective of this scandal is to analyze the big
data set related to the political view of the citizens which has been gathered by from the
Facebook. Considering the impact of the bigdata analysis it has been observed that the
analysis of the bigdata holds significant impact towards determining the statistical results.
With the purpose to analyze the large set of data the most targeted medium is the social
media platform as by considering the rapid growth of the technology and internet most of the
people are on the social media platform. However, the social media authorities must hold the
responsibility to not share the user information with the others as this can reveal several
personal contents of the user. Thus, it is highly essential for the authorities to seek permission
from the users to utilize their social media data. Followed by this aspect it has been noticed

Cambridge Analytical Scandal3
that in the year 2018 a very significant scandal has been noticed name Cambridge Analytica,
in Cambridge has effectively analyzes the political view of the individuals in order to support
the campaign of the Trump during the election of 2016 in the United States. Since, the
Facebook is one of the most impactful and vast social media platform thus Cambridge has
targeted the Facebook platform in order to get a large set of data with the purpose to get the
most accurate result. Cambridge Analytica is one of the largest data mining and analysis
organization which has been collaborated in the trump campaign in order to effectively
complete the desired survey. This process has termed as a scandal when the stakeholders of
those information has expressed that Facebook has violated its privacy policy and concern by
providing the access of the user data. However, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has
stated that Facebook has taken the concern of the user for accessing their data at initial stage
of Facebook login. Thus, from the analysis it has been noticed that this scandal has
effectively elaborated the risk related to the bigdata analysis as this can lead a significant
ethical concern as well as the privacy concern of the individual data.
In order to effectively elaborate the ethical issue related to this scandal in the below
section it consist a detail discussion about the scandal by relating it with the “Doing Ethics
Technique”.
Doing Ethics Technique Analysis:
The fundamental purpose behind this analysis id to effectively identify the risk related
to the mentioned case scenario. This process is initiate with answering several ethical
questions related to the Cambridge Analytica Scandal. As a result of this analysis several
important aspects has been identified which are listed below: