London: Cambridge Analytica, the embattled UK-based data consulting firm that worked on Donald Trump’s election campaign, has shut down citing a loss of business amidst a raging scandal that it compromised the personal information of 87 million Facebook users, including that of over 500,000 Indians. The firm is accused of mapping the behaviour of voters in the run-up to the 2016 US election won by Trump.
In a statement, Cambridge Analytica said it would immediately cease operations and bankruptcy proceedings would soon begin. The decision was made less than two months after Cambridge Analytica and Facebook became embroiled in the scandal. Revelations about the misuse of data, plunged Facebook into crisis and prompted regulators to open investigations.
Cambridge Analytica denies any wrongdoing, but says that the negative media coverage has left it with no clients and mounting legal fees which has forced it to resort to closure.
“Despite Cambridge Analytica’s unwavering confidence that its employees have acted ethically and lawfully, the siege of media coverage has driven away virtually all of the company’s customers and suppliers,” the company said in a statement.
“As a result, it has been determined that it is no longer viable to continue operating the business, which left Cambridge Analytica with no realistic alternative to placing the company into administration,” it added.
US-based social media giant Facebook has said that nearly 5.62 lakh people in India were “potentially affected” by its global data breach invol-ving Cambridge Anal-ytica. Facebook has informed the government that “only 335 people” in India were directly affected through the installation of an app and another 562,120 people were “potentially aff-ected” as friends of those users. Facebook has over 20 crore users in India.
Cambridge Analytica’s board has also applied to appoint insolvency practitioners Crowe Clark Whitehill to act as the independent administrator. Additionally, parallel bankruptcy proceedings will soon be commenced on behalf of Cambridge Analytica and certain of the Company’s US affiliates in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The report of an independent investigation released by CA said that it was involved in several elections in India since 2010, but refuted charges that it interfered in poll process.
