Analyzing Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Data Breach: Ethical Issues

This presentation provides a detailed analysis of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach case, highlighting the ethical issues that arose from the incident. It outlines the case, including Facebook's Open Graph platform and Cambridge Analytica's use of user data for political campaigns. The presentation identifies ethical issues such as privacy in digital life, trust, false political campaigns, and research ethics. It applies the Natural Rights Ethical Theory to assess the actions of the protagonists, focusing on the violation of rights to freedom, information, confidentiality, and privacy. The presentation also covers the implications of the breach, including fines and loss of user trust, and offers recommendations for social media platforms and users to protect personal information and prevent future data breaches. It emphasizes the importance of data protection as a fundamental human right. This presentation can be used as a reference and Desklib offers more solved assignments and past papers.

Facebook and Cambridge
Analytica: A case of Data
Breach
Student Details:

Business Case: Facebook Data
Breach

Outline of the Business Case
 During 2010, Facebook launched a platform ‘Open Graph’
(OG) that allows third-party developer to access Facebook
users’ personal data and their friends’ personal info
 During 2013, Cambridge scholar Aleksandr Kogan launched an
app: ‘thisisyourdigitallife’ on Facebook with the company
Global Science Research.
 During 2014, Facebook modified their privacy policy and
removed the OG platform
 During 2015, The Guardian revealed that Cambridge Analytica
is utilizing the data accumulated through Facebook for helping
Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign (The Conversation, 2018).

Facebook Cambridge Analytica
Case Conti..
 Later then in 2016, it got revealed by the MD of Cambridge
Analytica that the data provided from them was behind the
defeat of Hillary Clinton. The link of the business case is also
available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-05/facebook-
raises-cambridge-analytica-estimates/9620652
 During year 2017, it was exposed that the personal info of 50
million which was later revised as 87 million, Facebook users
were collected by the Cambridge Analytica.
 The info about the breach was out by a whistle blower
Christopher Wylie.
 Christopher Wylie reported that users’ data was used to search
potential voters in support of President Trump (ABC News,
2018).

Facebook Cambridge Analytica
Case Conti..
 Later then, President and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg
agreed that FB has committed a mistake and he had
unsuccessful to protect the users’ data.
 Post the incident, FB sent notifications to users related to
privacy policies.
 Recently, during September 2018, Facebook was seen intricate
in another scandal into which hacker took login info of around
50 million FB accounts (The Conversation, 2018).

Ethical issues
 The app: ‘thisisyourdigitallife’ breached private data of around 300,000
users through the psychological test (The Conversation, 2018).
 The app also stolen the personal info about their friends through Open
Graph platform.
 Ethical issues arise from the case:
Privacy in Digital Life
Trust and faith of the users
False political campaigns
Ethics of research
Public relations in politics
(The Guardian, 2018).

Ethical Theory assessing
protagonists’ actions
 Natural Rights Ethical Theory given by John Locke is defines
the rights of human beings and following human rights have
been disturbed with this business case:
Freedom to elect President
Information
Confidentiality
Privacy

Implications
 FB has fined of £500,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) for
the failure while maintaining transparency and protecting the privacy of the
users (BBC News, 2019).
 The above is the maximum fine which can be imposed on ICO on online
parties.
 FB users has lost their faith on FB for keeping info safe.

Implications Conti…
 People are no longer trust FB for keeping and sharing their personal
data (The Guardian, 2018).
 As per the survey conducted in 2018, the figure is showing the data
trust of FB has reached at bottom line of the graph (BBC News,
2019).
 Motivation for Whistle Blowers
 87 million Facebook users affected (ABC News, 2018).

Recommendations
 For FB and other social media
users:
Know what can you do to secure
the FB account
What is suggested when you log
in FB account in other’s
devices/apps
Know immediately about knowing
that you have been impacted
Do not share log in credentials
with anyone
Do not post personal pictures and
documents over FB and other
social media platforms
 For FB and other social media
platforms:
Storing FB users data in block
chain network in blocks can avoid
future data breaches
The info linked to those blocks
should have the link to the private
data block of the user
Third party activities like data
modification and manipulation can
be tracked or avoided through
block chain data management.

Summary
 Outline of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica case has been given with the
ethical issues attached with the business case.
 Rights based ethical theory is being applied to the case for analysing ethical
issues of this breach
 The case had demonstrated a clear understanding about ethical concern and
implications of the business cases.
 Social media platforms as well as users must protect, secure and shield
personal info as it is a human right to keep the info confidential (CNBC, 2018).

References
 ABC News. (2018, 04 05). Facebook says up to 87m people affected in Cambridge
Analytica data-mining scandal. Retrieved from ABC News:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-05/facebook-raises-cambridge-analytica-
estimates/9620652
 BBC News. (2019, 01 10). Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach. Retrieved
from BBC News: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46822439?
intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c81zyn0888lt/facebook-
cambridge-analytica-data-breach&link_location=live-reporting-story
 CNBC. (2018, 04 10). Facebook-Cambridge Analytica: A timeline of the data
hijacking scandal. Retrieved from CNBC:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/10/facebook-cambridge-analytica-a-timeline-of-the-
data-hijacking-scandal.html
 The Conversation. (2018, 03 28). Cambridge Analytica scandal: Facebook’s user
engagement and trust decline. Retrieved from The Conversation:
http://theconversation.com/cambridge-analytica-scandal-facebooks-user-
engagement-and-trust-decline-93814
 The Guardian. (2018, 07 11). Facebook fined for data breaches in Cambridge
Analytica scandal. Retrieved from The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/11/facebook-fined-for-data-
breaches-in-cambridge-analytica-scandal