published Mar 19, 2018, 4:48:31 PM, by Erik Larson
(Bloomberg) —

Connecticut opened an inquiry into how the personal information of millions of Facebook Inc. users came into the possession of U.K.-based Cambridge Analytica, the sophisticated data analytics firm that helped President Donald Trump win the 2016 election.

Reports that as many as 50 million profiles were tapped “raise serious questions about how this happened in the specific situation involving Cambridge Analytica and about Facebook’s policies and practices,” Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said Monday.

Facebook said in a March 16 blog post that Cambridge Analytica received some user data in 2014 through an app developer on its social network, violating its policies. Facebook said Cambridge Analytica certified in 2015 that it had destroyed the information, though Facebook is now calling that claim into question. Cambridge Analytica, based in London, has denied wrongdoing and said it didn’t use the data in its work for Trump.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey opened a civil investigation and has already been in touch with Menlo Park, California-based Facebook, according to her spokeswoman Emalie Gainey. The state’s top law enforcement officer is examining the nature of the impacted data, how the data was used and what policies if any were violated, she said.

Adds comment from Cambridge Analytica.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net Joe Schneider
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