{"id":11031,"date":"2018-04-22T11:14:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T15:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/?p=11031"},"modified":"2018-10-05T12:49:36","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T16:49:36","slug":"the-cambridge-analytica-revelations-show-why-data-privacy-is-an-essential-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/crcl\/the-cambridge-analytica-revelations-show-why-data-privacy-is-an-essential-right\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cambridge Analytica Revelations Show Why Data Privacy is an Essential Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by David Meyerson, @dbmeyerson, a Software Engineer at Microsoft and co-teacher of computer science in Boston Public Schools.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Personal data from 87 million Facebook users in the U.S. was used without those users\u2019 consent to help political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica campaign for President Donald Trump. Cambridge Analytica obtained the user data in 2015, according to contemporaneous reporting<\/a> from The Guardian. But only more recent reporting<\/a> from The New York Times has revealed to the public the massive scope of the data shared, how it was collected, and details of how it was used to support Trump\u2019s presidential campaign. Those most recent revelations have caused public outcry aimed at Facebook, led to Mark Zuckerberg testifying before the Senate, and encouraged the public to take a critical look at what happens with our data on social media, how much damage access to our data can cause, and what power we have to control our data.<\/p>\n

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Cambridge Analytica used user data and machine learning to build what they called psychographic models. The term psychographic comes from \u201cdemographic.\u201d The idea is that just as users belong to demographics, with whom they share a general trait like age or gender, they also belong to even smaller groups with whom they share psychological traits like conscientiousness, extraversion or neuroticism. Hidden camera footage<\/a> published by Britain\u2019s \u201cChannel 4 News\u201d shows Cambridge Analytica salesmen boast that they can predict with great specificity the \u201chopes and fears\u201d of particular users, and subsequently what kinds of political messages would most likely persuade each user. With some or all of those millions of users\u2019 data, and without those users\u2019 consent, Cambridge Analytica trained an algorithm that they claim targeted voters with ads based on their \u201chopes and fears.\u201d Political campaigns, including Ted Cruz\u2019s, and major conservative donors like Robert Mercer have invested millions of dollars in Cambridge Analytica\u2019s services. Even if psychographic micro-targeting isn\u2019t effective yet, there are at least some who find it very promising.<\/p>\n

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This phenomenon has sparked fear and outrage among privacy advocates, liberals, and others opposed to Trump. In its defense, Cambridge Analytica has claimed that micro-targeting is not new. Advertisers, political and otherwise, have been tracking users and showing them micro-targeted ads for years now, with little public controversy. As Cambridge Analytica tweeted<\/a>, \u201cObama’s 2008 campaign was famously data-driven, pioneered microtargeting in 2012.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Obama's 2008 campaign was famously data-driven, pioneered microtargeting in 2012, talking to people specifically based on the issues they care about. 6\/8<\/p>\n

— Cambridge Analytica (@CamAnalytica) March 17, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n