Holding Facebook to account for Cambridge Analytica

In March 2018 the Guardian newspaper revealed that Cambridge Analytica was able to harvest data from Facebook -- and PI responded.

Data harvesting

In March 2018 the Guardian newspaper revealed that Cambridge Analytica was able to harvest data from Facebook. By Facebook's own design, companies like Cambridge Analytica were able to amass data on users' friends. In the case of Cambridge Analytica, they were able to amass data on 87 million people, the vast majority of whom had never interacted with Cambridge Analytica in the first place.

This builds on PI's work on data and elections and our global work that included a previous investigation uncovering US data firms in Kenya's 2017 election.

PI was quick to develop policy objectives, key questions for Facebook to answer, and to engage our global network of partner organisations to respond. We worked closely with media organisations to ensure that this story received sufficient attention.