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Facebook suspends Canadian firm AggregateIQ amid data row

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Facebook to notify users if Cambridge Analytica accessed your data

Cambridge Analytica expose has rocked the social networking giant, Facebook to the core. Since then, the Mark Zuckerberg led company has been in a damage control mode bringing in new privacy tools, settings and of course more transparency for its users.

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Walking the same path, Facebook now says that it has suspended Canadian political consultancy AggregateIQ from its platform after reports that the data firm may have improperly had access to the personal data of Facebook users.

"In light of recent reports that AggregateIQ may be affiliated with SCL and may, as a result, have improperly received FB user data, we have added them to the list of entities we have suspended from our platform while we investigate," Facebook said in a statement. "Our internal review continues, and we will cooperate fully with any investigations by regulatory authorities." Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) is a government and military contractor that is the parent of Cambridge Analytica.

On its website, AggregateIQ describes itself as a “digital advertising, web and software development company based in Canada.” It also says that “has never been and is not a part of Cambridge Analytica,” or its parent company, SCL. However, a report in The Guardian last year connected both Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ to a pair of campaigns advocating for Britain to leave the European Union, and said that they had a “close working relationship.”
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Last week, Facebook said that the personal information of up to 87 million users may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, up from a previous estimate of more than 50 million.
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