Facebook willingly handed over data to the man it now blames for the Cambridge Analytica scandal

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Facebook handed over data, with no strings attached, to the man it now blames for the Cambridge Analytica scandal. That was the testimony Aleksandr Kogan — the data scientist behind the app that harvested information from 87 million Facebook accounts — gave to a committee of lawmakers in Britain on April 24.

In evidence to the parliamentary Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, Kogan described the somewhat cosy relationship he had with Facebook as part of the company's academic partnerships. Prior to launching the personality quiz, which ultimately scraped the Facebook data Kogan's company Global Science Research sold to Cambridge Analytica for $800,000 (£573,000), Kogan said he worked with Facebook on a number of studies to "understand how people connect and express emotions around the world."  He said Facebook gave him "several macro-level datasets on friendship connections and emoticon usage" to assist with his work, which took place in 2013. This was supplemented by an app created by his University of Cambridge lab, named the CPW Lab app, which surveyed up to 15,000 people and collected data from them and their friends. Private message data was also gathered, Kogan added. He told UK parliamentarians that the information Facebook gave him came with no strings attached. "There was no signed agreement initially. They were just 'here's the email, here's the data set,'" he said, adding that he intended to hold on to the data "indefinitely" for use in other studies.


Facebook willingly handed over data to the man it now blames for the Cambridge Analytica scandal