According to a new report by the Guardian, Cambridge Analytica was offered politicians’ hacked emails and personal data about the future Nigerian president.
Based on accounts from witnesses, the data analytics firm was offered material from Israeli hackers who had accessed the private emails of two politicians, who are now heads of state.
The sources have also described how senior directors of the company - including its recently suspended CEO, Alexander Nix - gave staff instructions to handle material provided by the hackers in election campaigns in Nigeria and St Kitts and Nevis.
These further accusations come after a Channel Four News report showed Nix talking about using personal information to trap politicians in elections across the world.
In the meantime, Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, addressed the public regarding the Cambridge Analytica breach yesterday. In his statement, which he posted from his Facebook, he commented:
“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again. The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there's more to do, and we need to step up and do it.”
Zuckerberg also announced that “Facebook would investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before it changed its platform in 2014, and will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity.”
However, now faces investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) into whether it violated a consent decree. The decree requires Facebook to ask users for permission before sharing their data.
If found guilty of violating a consent decree, Facebook could face fines of $40,000 per violation.