The announcement of the closure of Cambridge Analytica does not convince its critics


The announcement of the closure of Cambridge Analytica does not convince its critics



The company that extracted profiles of tens of millions of Facebook users for political campaigns is dissolved by the flight of customers



      The British firm Cambridge Analytica, which is being investigated for using profiles obtained from Facebook users to influence the election campaign of Donald Trump and the supporters of the 'Brexit' during the British referendum on the EU, has announced its closure, "because the siege of media coverage has scared away virtually all customers and suppliers, "according to a company statement.

Cambridge Analytica is a legal shell without employees, according to its owners, which was created by Laboratorios de Comunicación Estratégica (SCL), a company founded in 1990 to develop commercial advertising campaigns based on psychological and quantitative research on consumer behavior. The statement indicates that SCL has also been dissolved.

      The announcement came hours after an expert in cybersecurity and fraudulent use of data, Chris Vickery, told a committee in the House of Commons that a Canadian company, AIQ, is part of the structure of SC, something that the latter has denied AIQ would have acted directly in the campaign of Trump and in that of the 'Brexit', something that the directors of the Eurosceptic group accused of hiring it deny.

Initially dedicated to commercial advertising, SCL became a specialist in 'psychological operations' in war situations for military and defense institutions. In his political campaigns he had concentrated in developing countries until he connected with a group of researchers from the University of Cambridge who studied mass psychology through social networks.

Elections
One of them, Alexander Kogan, obtained financing from SCL to develop the software of an application that promised a psychological profile to those who accepted to install it in their Facebook account and that opened the door of access to 'friends' of the user in the social network. So I would have collected data from 30 million users, according to CA, and more than 80 million, according to Facebook.

At that time, the network created by Mark Zuckerberg, allowed the installation of such 'apps' with research efforts, but without verifying the subsequent use of data. The disclosure that CA acquired millions of profiles and has used them to direct 'microcampaigns' in an electoral context has led to parliamentary investigations on data management by Facebook.

The American giant demanded to CA the destruction of the obtained data, and the company affirmed that it has fulfilled that requirement. The head of CA, Alexander Nix, left SCL as a result of the various investigations, which seem more compromising on data privacy, the rules on participation of foreigners in American campaigns or the financing of the 'Brexit' that in the strategies of electoral marketing in themselves.

Regulatory bodies, parliamentarians and other British voices have warned that the dissolution of the company can be a ploy to avoid participation in open investigations and their legal consequences. The incorporation of a new entity has been identified in the Business Register of the United Kingdom, which is associated with the directors of SCL.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Caught by the mobile

Image
Caught by the mobile The last known leaks of messages between politicians come to light by the use of SMS instead of instant messaging applications where the texts are encrypted    From the famous "Luis, be strong" from Rajoy to Bárcenas that came to light four years ago, until the last known case with the 'Operation Lezo': «Thanks Nacho. A hug. Hopefully the messes will close soon »of the Minister of Justice, Rafael Catalá, to the ex-president of the Community of Madrid recently arrested, Ignacio González. The leaks of certain SMS from the highest Spanish political sphere suggest that telephone conversations are still a source of police investigations.     Just as years ago telephone calls intervened (the so-called 'phone jacks') were the order of the day, today with new technologies you can go a step further and are text messages (SMS) or instant messaging applications (Whatsapp or Telegram mainly) where the focus is placed. Of course, intercepting a...
Read more

Honda and Visa will allow to pay from the car

Image
Honda and Visa will allow to pay from the car The system will perform transactions to issue payments at service stations and parking meters   Honda and Visa have introduced a system that allows transactions from inside the vehicle, and that can be used at service stations and parking meters. The announcement was made at CES 2017, used as decoration to climb a step in the payment system and a new breakthrough in the automotive sector, which is increasingly focused on connectivity.   This union is added to the collaboration agreement signed by both parties in the Mobile Congress of Barcelona. From that signing, the two companies began working on a system that allows drivers to make payments from inside the vehicle for daily tasks, such as parking meters and gasoline. Supported by Bluetooth wireless technology, cars will connect with petrol pumps or parking meters and from there drivers can perform transactions from the touch screen of the device. In the case of service stations,...
Read more

Laser vision, closer to the human eye

Image
Laser vision, closer to the human eye Researchers create an ultra-thin membrane whose success has been demonstrated in animals     Shooting lasers with your eyes is not just a Hollywood trick. An investigation of the University of St. Andrew in the United States has made it possible to create an ultrafine membrane laser using organic semiconductors. The tests, for the time being, have only been taken to the animal world. In particular, they have been tested in the eyes of cows and this membrane has been shown to show lines on a flat bottom or ones and zeros creating a digital bar code. "Our work represents a new milestone in the development of lasers and, in particular, points the way to how lasers can be used in inherently soft and ductile environments, either in portable sensors or as an authentication function in banknotes" , explains Professor Malte Gather, one of researchers at the University of St Andrew. "By varying the materials and adjusting the laser grid struc...
Read more