Cambridge Analytica hasn’t deleted Facebook user data as promised, says report

LONDON: Despite British consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica's claim that it has deleted data of over 50 million Facebook users, portions of the data is still out in the wild, the media reported.

According to a report in UK's Channel 4 News, the cache of campaign data from a Cambridge Analytica source details 136,000 individuals in the US state of Colorado, "along with each person's personality and psychological profile".

"The data, which dates from 2014, was used by Cambridge Analytica to target specific messages at residents who would be most susceptible to them," the report said.

Cambridge Analytica had earlier claimed that it has erased the data from the public domain.

READ | Collaborated with the Indian officials during elections; transparent about data collection, says Microsoft official

The company received the user data from a Facebook app years ago that purported to be a psychological research tool, however, the firm was not authorised to have that information.

Cambridge Analytica has been accused of influencing the result of the United Kingdom's 2016 Brexit referendum and of the 2016 American presidential election that brought Donald Trump to the White House.

In a recent appearance before British Parliament, ex-Cambridge programmer Christopher Wylie shocked delegates by stating that he had no doubt that his former employer had manipulated the Brexit referendum and the 2016 US presidential election and broken the law.