Cambridge Analytica

Facebook scandal firm

Cambridge Analytica was a British political consulting firm that harvested personal data from millions of Facebook users without consent, then used it to build psychological profiles for targeted political advertising.

The company worked on the 2016 Trump campaign and Brexit referendum before collapsing in 2018 amid scandal.

The name now serves as shorthand for data privacy violations and the manipulation of democratic processes through social media: Every platform fears becoming the next Cambridge Analytica story.

FacebookDominant social media platform
dataFacts for analysis
data miningExtracting insights from datasets
scandalDisgraceful public affair
privacyFreedom from observation

breach · user consent · harvesting · Trump · Brexit · Steve Bannon · election · manipulation · targeting · profiling · Bannon · Mercer · whistleblower · algorithm · microtargeting · voter manipulation · influence · voters

Opposites

data ethics and consent

Cambridge AnalyticaMozilla

Browser nonprofit, privacy-focused

Signal · DuckDuckGo · GDPR · informed consent

democratic integrity

Cambridge Analyticademocratic participation

Citizens engaging in governance

Family

Cambridge, analytic, analytical, analytically, analytics, analyze, analysis, analyst

Familiarity: Top 500,000
Profile: Concrete · Negative · Rated PG