Cambridge Researcher Kogan Disputes Facebook’s Data Leak Story

Facebook has explained many times how personal information from as many as 87 million people was collected by a researcher and then sold to Cambridge Analytica. That researcher has a different version of events, which he plans to outline in testimony to Congress, according to Bloomberg.

Facebook has said Aleksandr Kogan collected user’s data through a personality quiz app called This Is Your Digital Life. But in prepared testimony, Kogan said that it was a different app, created earlier and collecting data on fewer people, that was used to gather information for Cambridge Analytica.

The stories diverge in part because Facebook doesn’t actually know what happened to the data from the quiz after it was shared with Kogan. The social media giant was forced to defend itself and explain its policies in response to media reports exposing the breach, not its own discovery. Kogan’s recounting explains the progression of the app he developed and on which he worked with Cambridge Analytica.

Kogan says that both versions of the app clearly laid out terms of service, which informed participants that GSR would be allowed to “disseminate, publish, transfer,“ the data and would have “worldwide license“ to use the data “for any purpose.“ He said he understands why "people may feel angry and violated" and that he is "very regretful" he didn’t anticipate the blowback.

In an effort to ease concerns, Kogan said he believes there is “almost no chance this data could have been helpful to a political campaign, and I still have not seen any evidence to indicate that the Trump campaign used this dataset to micro-target voters.“ The personality profiles he provided were not part of a sophisticated "mind-control effort," he said.