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Researcher in Facebook scandal says: my work was no good for targeted advertising

[April 24, 2018] LONDON (Reuters) - A researcher at the center of a scandal over the alleged misuse of the data of nearly 100 million Facebook users said on Tuesday that the work he did was not useful for micro-targeted adverts.

Aleksandr Kogan, a researcher at Cambridge University who created a personality quiz to collect users data on Facebook, gives evidence to Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committe in Westminster, London, Britain, April 24, 2018. Parliament TV handout via REUTERS

Aleksandr Kogan, who worked for the University of Cambridge, is at the centre of a controversy over Cambridge Analytica's use of millions of users' data without their permission after it was hired by Donald Trump for his 2016 election campaign.

Kogan said that the dataset he compiled would be of little help for targeted advertising, and that the data he obtained would not be useful for identifying individuals.

"I believe the project we did makes little to no sense if the goal is to run targeted ads on Facebook," he said in written testimony to a parliamentary committee.

"In fact, the platform's tools provide companies a far more effective pathway to target people based on their personalities than using scores from users from our work."

Facebook has said that the personal information of about 87 million users may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, after Kogan created a personality quiz app to collect the data.

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have blamed Kogan for alleged data misuse, but he has said that he was being made a scapegoat by the companies for the scandal. Cambridge Analytica will later address Kogan's remarks at a briefing.

Cambridge Analytica is also under scrutiny over campaigning for the 2016 referendum when Britons voted to leave the European Union.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)


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