Despite the backlash over the past couple of weeks, the Facebook data on 50 million people illegally obtained by Cambridge Analytica hasn’t been completely deleted. That’s right. The company has deleted a decent chunk of personal information. However, the rest of it is still loose in the wild.
The info was made clear by London’s Channel 4. Apparently, Channel 4 was able to view the data of 136,000 individuals that is currently in possession of Cambridge Analytica’s source. In simple terms, the leaked data is still lurking around in the wild.
With that being said, it is unclear how many people or groups still have access to all the data. According to Channel 4, the profile data was passed around using generic, non-corporate email systems. Hence, it appears that the data is in the hands of a lot more people than you can imagine.
Channel 4 has also spoken directly to those whose privacy was breached. The report quoted, Janice, a nurse whose data is included in the cache, saying, “It’s a manipulation of our society by people who don’t really care about our society. They care about their business. They care about their bottom line, and they aren’t here for all of us, other than they want to manipulate all of us because we’re either a voter or a consumer. And that’s how they look at me, they don’t look at how safe I am, or how good my schools are.”
Channel 4’s report indeed comes as a surprise considering the fact that Facebook has been apologizing and claiming that involved parties have deleted all improperly acquired data.
