British parliament seizes Facebook documents

The British parliament has reportedly seized documents that are alleged to contain important information about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Background

Cambridge Analytica is a private company founded in 2013. It uses data mining (processes that extract patterns and knowledge from big data), and data analysis “to change audience behaviour”. Based out of London, the company has offices in the United States, Brazil, and Malaysia. Cambridge Analytica partnered with Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign. According to reports, Cambridge Analytica and its affiliate SCL, have influenced over 100 campaigns over 5 continents.

Cambridge Analytica used personal data acquired from a number of sources, including Facebook, to create micro-targeting advertisements designed to influence opinions. CEO Alexander Nix was caught on tape claiming that the company does “a lot more” than just investigation, alluding to entrapment and bribery. According to records, the Trump campaign paid the firm over $6 million.

Last year, it was announced that the UK Information Commissioner’s Office was “Conducting a wide assessment of the data-protection risk arising from the use of data analytics, including for political purposes.” It alleged that Cambridge Analytica used personal data to promote the agenda of the pro-Brexit campaign group, Leave.EU.

Analysis

Mr Damian Collins, head of Britain's parliamentary committee dealing with culture and media issues, invoked a rarely used legal power to compel the founder of a US software company, Six4Three, to hand over internal Facebook documents, the Guardian reported.

"This is an unprecedented move but it's an unprecedented situation," Mr Collins said, "We've failed to get answers from Facebook and we believe the documents contain information of very high public interest."

The documents are alleged to contain important information about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The newspaper said they include confidential e-mails between senior executives and correspondence with CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The company Six4Three obtained the documents in a legal action against Facebook, and they are subject to a California court order that forbids them from being shared or made public.

Facebook said the materials obtained by the parliamentary committee are subject to the court order, and it has asked the committee "to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook”.

The seizure is the latest move in a bitter battle between the British parliament and the social media giant. The struggle to hold Facebook to account has raised concerns about the limits of British authority over international companies that now play a key role in the democratic process.

Facebook, which has lost more than US$100 billion (US$138 billion) in value since March when the Observer exposed how Cambridge Analytica had harvested data from 87 million US users, faces another potential PR crisis.

British MPs leading the inquiry into fake news have repeatedly tried to summon Zuckerberg to explain the company’s actions. He has repeatedly refused.

Collins said this reluctance to testify, plus misleading testimony from an executive at a hearing in February, had forced MPs to explore other options for gathering information about Facebook operations.

The documents seized were obtained during a legal discovery process by Six4Three. It took action against the social media giant after investing US$250,000 in an app.

Six4Three alleges the cache shows Facebook was not only aware of the implications of its privacy policy, but actively exploited them, intentionally creating and effectively flagging up the loophole that Cambridge Analytica used to collect data. That raised the interest of Collins and his committee.

A Facebook spokesman said that Six4Three’s “claims have no merit, and we will continue to defend ourselves vigorously”.

Assessment

Our assessment is that Facebook is unable to defend the gross misuse of its own platform and has resorted to a largely misdirected defensive public relations campaign ever since the scandal came to light. We believe that the British Parliament may demand greater transparency from Facebook over its UK operations and may even petition Mark Zuckerberg to face a Parliamentary committee, despite his refusals to do so in the past.