Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Data Leak: Ethics, Privacy Law and Cyber Security

Running Head: Ethics, Privacy and Cyber Security
0
Ethics, Privacy Law and Cyber Security
Student’s Name
10/22/2018
Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Data Leak

Ethics, Privacy and Cyber Security 1
Contents
Issue.................................................................................................................................................2
Rules................................................................................................................................................3
Analysis...........................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................6
Legislations 6
Other Resources 6

Ethics, Privacy and Cyber Security 2
Issue
Recently, it has come under the news that personal details of more than 50 million users
of Facebook had been leaked to one of the companies named Cambridge Analytica. It was a UK
based political analytics provider. The whole issue started when Aleksandr Kogan, a professor of
the University Of Cambridge University was collecting data in respect to Facebook users and
after the research; he developed a mobile application named “This is your digital life”. This app
allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect the information of Facebook users. Later on, the
collective information was used in an adverse manner1 (Batra, 2018).
Cambridge Analytica used this information in favor of Donald Trump who was a then-the
presidential candidate. This incident was reported as a data breach2 (Badshah, 2018). In reply to
the issue, the Deputy Counsel of Facebook stated that it is not a case of a data breach. He held
the allegation false and in his clarification, he had stated that people who have used the
application developed by Kogan have provided their individual consent for the access of their
personal information and Facebook was not on failure as no password has been asked the by the
application named This is your digital life (TIYDL). It was not an illegal act as people have
consented and given the approval of access to their personal information through Facebook.
However, the deputy counsel had denied the presence of data breach from the side of
Facebook, yet to say that people who have consented to TIYDL were not aware that their
personal information could be shared with a third party. Even this app accessed the information
1 DK Batra, What the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Data Leak Teaches us About Ethics And Privacy (2018)
<https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/313110>
2 Nadeem Badshah, Facebook to contact 87 million users affected by data breach (2018)
<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/08/facebook-to-contact-the-87-million-users-affected-by-data-
breach>.