Cambridge Analytica, the UK marketing analytics firm at the heart of the Facebook data scandal announced it was “immediately ceasing all operations” and filing for insolvency in Britain and the United States.
While regulators and lawmakers in the US and UK have scrutinised the company’s work concerning data protection and privacy regulations, nothing has been forthcoming from Africa.
Cambridge Analytica’s problems came to light thanks to an investigation by UK’s Channel 4. CA Executives bragged in a secret recording by Channel 4 News that they had run President Uhuru Kenyatta’s campaigns in 2013 and 2017 – saying they had “staged the whole thing”.
The firm is accused of being behind a deeply divisive campaign that exploited ethnic tensions to manipulate voters.
Cambridge Analytica never spoke publicly on the issue but Mr. Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party has downplayed the impact of the group, saying it only employed the company’s parent company, SCL, to help with branding.
SCL also reportedly worked for former President Goodluck Jonathan’s losing 2015 re-election campaign, using Israeli computer hackers to find dirt on his opponent Muhammadu Buhari.
SCL says it had only provided “advertising and marketing services in support of the Goodluck Jonathan campaign”.
Cambridge Analytica said it had been “vilified” in recent months over “numerous unfounded accusations”, which had decimated its business.
Perhaps the most troubling of the claims was that the company exploited Facebook users’ data for the election campaign of US President Donald Trump. It was learned earlier this year that CA gathered up profile information via a personality prediction app.
CA denies the charges and says it deleted data about Facebook users obtained in breach of the social network’s terms of service.
Facebook has admitted that up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked by the firm.
