Facebook bans Trump campaign data firm Cambridge Analytica for violating user privacy

Cambridge Analytica, the company who led data mining and analysis for the Trump campaign, has been suspended from using the Facebook social media platform for the misuse of personal information involving 270,000 people.

"We are suspending Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL), including their political data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, from Facebook," Paul Grewal, the company's vice president and deputy general counsel, stated Friday.

The statement said the action followed reports that all information was not deleted, following earlier revelations that "a research app used by psychologists" had legitimately collected the data, a transfer of the data to SCL/Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica's work for the Trump campaign was overseen by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and White House senior advisor.

"In 2015, we learned that a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan lied to us and violated our Platform Policies by passing data from an app that was using Facebook Login to SCL/Cambridge Analytica, a firm that does political, government and military work around the globe," Facebook explained.

"Although Kogan gained access to this information in a legitimate way," they acknowledged, "by passing information on to a third party, including SCL/Cambridge Analytica ... he violated our platform policies."

Facebook demanded in 2015 that all the violators certified that all of the data had been destroyed.

"We will take legal action if necessary to hold them responsible and accountable for any unlawful behavior," Facebook added.