Cambridge Analytica has claimed that it has already deleted all the Facebook that it collected from 50 million users previously and even said that it was willing to do a third-party audit to verify this claim. According to a new report from UK broadcaster Channel 4, Cambridge Analytica’s claims may not be trie at all.
The broadcaster apparently discovered a cache of the data CA harvested, and it contained information on 136,000 individuals from Colorado, including their personality results as well as psychological profiles created from the information that was collected.
Channel 4‘s source said that Colorado Republicans used that data set to target voters in the state. Apparently, the list is known to have been “passed around using generic, non-corporate email systems, outside of the servers of Cambridge Analytica, and linked company SCL.” The these claims by Channel 4 hold true, it would mean that a lot of people iChat have access to the list, and it may be impossible to have it completely removed from circulation.
Cambridge Analytica has continued to insist that it delete the data it gathered from the 270,000 people who installed the “thisisyourdigitallife” Facebook app and all of their friends.
A spokesperson for Cambridge Analytica told Channel 4:
“We have never passed any data from GSR to an external party. After Facebook contacted us in December 2015 we deleted all GSR (Global Science Research, the research company that had obtained the data for CA) data and took appropriate steps to ensure that any copies of the data were deleted. This includes our lawyers taking action in late 2014 against a number of former staff members who had stolen data and intellectual property from the company. These former staff members each signed an undertaking promising that they had deleted all such material. It is untrue that we failed to take appropriate measures to ensure that GSR data were deleted.”
