Cambridge Analytica

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On July 5, 2018, the EU Parliament passed a non-binding resolution encouraging the European Commission to suspend the EU-US Privacy Shield Program unless the US is fully compliant by September 1, 2018.  The EU Parliament believes that the current Privacy Shield program does not provide an adequate level of protection required by European law.  This comes roughly two years after the European Commission deemed the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework adequate to enable data transfers under EU law.  But a lot has changed in two years. 
Continue Reading EU Commission Recommends Suspension of Privacy Shield; Recent FTC Efforts May Be Too Little Too Late

The conversation surrounding the data we put online continues to heat up.  Bloomberg reports that in 2015, Twitter sold access to randomly selected tweets to Aleksandr Kogan, the individual who created the personality quiz that Cambridge Analytica then used to harvest Facebook user data.  Working under his own commercial enterprise, Global Science Research, Mr. Kogan…

In the wake of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, another social media company, Grindr, a gay dating app, has come under scrutiny for its sharing of sensitive personal information with third parties.  In particular, Norwegian research outfit SINTEF, after analyzing Grindr’s traffic, alleges that Grindr shares its users’ disclosed HIV status and last tested date , GPS location and other demographic profile information with third parties.
Continue Reading Grindr Grinds Users Gears by Reportedly Sharing Users’ HIV Status

Facebook is the subject of a recent media blitz due to the allegations that 50 million people had their information improperly disclosed to Cambridge Analytica, a data research firm that may have played a role in the 2016 election.

The premise of the allegations is that Cambridge Analytica sent out a personality test to roughly 270,000 of Facebook’s users, stating that it would use the test for academic purposes.  However, allegedly, Cambridge Analytica collected the personal information not only of those who replied to the survey, but also of all of those individuals’ Facebook “friends.”  By doing so, the 270,000 users extrapolated to 50 million users.
Continue Reading Facebook In Hot Water With Latest Privacy Missteps