I worked at Facebook. I know how Cambridge Analytica could have happened. - The Washington Post

I worked at Facebook. I know how Cambridge Analytica could have happened. - The Washington Post

I worked at Facebook. I know how Cambridge Analytica could have happened.

Cambridge Analytica, a firm that ran data operations for President Trump's 2016 campaign, was banned from Facebook on March 16. Here's what you need to know. (Elyse Samuels, Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

By Sandy Parakilas March 20 at 3:58 PM

Sandy Parakilas was an operations manager on the platform team at Facebook in 2011 and 2012. He is an adviser to the Center for Humane Technology.

Last week, Facebook suspended data firm Cambridge Analytica and an associated researcher, Aleksandr Kogan, for violating its policies on data protection. This followed reports that Cambridge Analytica acquired data on more than 50 million users without their consent and used that data to help Donald Trump win the U.S. presidential election in 2016. (Cambridge Analytica denies any wrongdoing.)

In 2011 and 2012, I led the team responsible for data policy violations on Facebook App Platform, which included well-known games such as Farmville and Candy Crush as well as many others.. The company cared little about protecting users’ data then, and the Cambridge Analytica story shows that hasn’t changed.