Facebook Gives Clarification on Cambridge Analytica in DPR

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A social media giant Facebook has given its clarification related to the case of Cambridge Analytica to the House of Representative`s (DPR) Commission I today, April 17. 

Facebook Indonesia's public policy head Ruben Hattari explained the users’ data misused scandal conducted by Cambridge Analytica was not due to the system failure.

“This is not because the third party hacked Facebook’s system or passed our data security appliance,” said Ruben, reading the clarification statement to the House.

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He asserted that Facebook has never allowed Cambridge Analytica to use the data. According to Ruben, that political data analytics firm is a third-party independent data controller that process its data on its own purpose.

Ruben stated the application created by Aleksandr Kogan for Cambridge Analytica utilized Facebook Login as it is required for other applications in general. “This was a breach of trust and our failure to protecting users’ data. We apologize,” he said.

Ruben mentioned as many as 748 Indonesians had installed the application from November 2013 until December 2015 and as many as 1.09 million users were affected.

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The massive data breach was revealed by Christopher Wylie, former Head of Research of Cambridge Analytica, to the UK daily The Guardian, in March. Millions of Facebook personal data were collected using a personality quiz app which developed by Global Science Research (GSR) allegedly for academic research purposes.

The data was then illegally sold to Cambridge Analytica which later used it to tailor political ads that affect voters emotionally. The data was allegedly used for the political campaign of Donald Trump in the US Presidential Election.

M YUSUF MANURUNG