Second Cambridge Analytica whistleblower says 'sex compass' app gathered more Facebook data beyond the 87 million we already knew about

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Former Cambridge Analytica executive Brittany Kaiser. Parliament UK

The 87 million Facebook accounts harvested by Cambridge Analytica (CA) in a massive data breach were probably just the tip of the iceberg.

That's the written testimony CA's former Business Development Director Brittany Kaiser gave to Britain's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMSC) on Tuesday.

She told British lawmakers, who are conducting an inquiry into fake news and the Facebook data scandal, that CA used numerous questionnaires to gather data.

These quizzes, Kaiser said, were in addition to the now infamous Thisisyourdigitallife personality quiz CA conducted with University of Cambridge psychology professor Aleksandr Kogan's firm Global Science Research to harvest information from 87 million Facebook accounts.

"I am aware in a general sense of a wide range of surveys which were done by CA or its partners, usually with a Facebook login," she told the DCMSC, highlighting one quiz called "sex compass" with no further detail.

"I believe it is almost certain that the number of Facebook users whose data was compromised through routes similar to that used by Kogan is much greater than 87 million; and that both Cambridge Analytica and other unconnected companies and campaigns were involved in these activities."

Business Insider has contacted CA and Facebook for comment.

Clarifying the written evidence during a hearing on Tuesday, DCMSC Chairman Damian Collins asked: "The purpose of the survey was to gather this information and that by completing it with your Facebook login, Cambridge Analytica also gets access to your data?"

Kaiser replied: "I believe that was the point of the quizzes in the first place, yes."

The data scandal, which was first exposed by CA whistleblower Christopher Wylie in The Observer newspaper last month, wiped around $60 billion off Facebook's value. CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologised repeatedly for the fiasco and was hauled in front of Congress last week to explain the company's actions.

Dreamtrain on April 17th, 2018 at 15:40 UTC »

"Sex compass" sounds like an app that uses data mined from you to determine who would be delighted to have sex with you and points you and the other person to each other's direction.

Makes me wonder how many people would gladly and knowingly turn over the type of information CA has compiled and more (all whilst agreeing the data will be used the way CA handled it), if the end result was that. Ive a feeling its enough people to make you rich.

Fake_William_Shatner on April 17th, 2018 at 13:57 UTC »

You might think; "Oh, Facebook is just datamining chumps who get their free apps and games -- these are just more ads for stupid idiots." Yeah, well, that's most of the country, and these people vote. Facebook and their "subsidiary" that pretends to do stuff without their knowledge have conducted tests on their users. They'll introduce certain things in the feed and see how it influences the positive or negative nature of that persons comments.

So if a marketing company figures out that you see a steak 20 minutes prior to a car ad you are 2% more likely to buy -- you will see a steak in your feed. The data being collected is allowing companies with huge datamining and neural net applications to fine tune the art of manipulation. You might think you are immune. But don't MOST of us waste a lot of time getting upset at something in the news? What long-term effect does that have? How much emotion can we experience before what gets us excited requires more and more outrage?

Are we passive about our world because we know too much about our world? There's a lot of useful information that can be gleaned about REAL human nature; what people do when they think nobody is looking. But all the wrong people are going to use this information for the wrong things. More people will become addicted to more things. More people will tune out. More people will depend on social media while being less social.

Not only do we need to get control over Facebook, we need to get control over ourselves and our need for Facebook.

CPTherptyderp on April 17th, 2018 at 12:06 UTC »

This plus the OPM and exquifax hacks just makes me assume literally everyone has my data/info.

Edit: Since almost every reply to me has been "Durr facebook only has what you give it" I'm more upset about the Equifax breach and at every piece of background check data I gave to get a security clearance with high chance of my fingerprints