UK regulator looks at evidence after raid on Cambridge Analytica in widening privacy scandal

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Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) enforcement officers leave on March 24, 2018 after searching the Cambridge Analytica headquarters in London. The company is accused of using the personal data of 50 million Facebook members for its own campaigns during the US election and the Brexit referendum. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 5:00am, 25 Mar 2018Updated: 8:44am, 12 Apr 2018

Britain’s information regulator said on Saturday it was assessing evidence gathered from a raid on the office of data mining firm Cambridge Analytica, part of an investigation into alleged misuse of personal information by political campaigns and social media companies like Facebook.

More than a dozen investigators from the Information Commissioner’s Office entered the company’s central London office late on Friday, soon after a High Court judge granted a warrant.

Workers clean the windows of the shared building which houses the offices of Cambridge Analytica in central London on March 24, 2018. British regulators finished searching the offices of Cambridge Analytica, the firm at the centre of a Facebook data scandal, before dawn on Saturday and said they would examine the evidence before considering “next steps”. Photo: AFP

The investigators were seen leaving the premises early on Saturday after spending about seven hours searching the office. The regulator said it will “consider the evidence before deciding the next steps and coming to any conclusions.”

“This is one part of a larger investigation by the ICO into the use of personal data and analytics by political campaigns, parties, social media companies and other commercial actors,” it said.

Authorities in Britain as well as the US are investigating Cambridge Analytica over allegations the firm improperly obtained data from 50 million Facebook users and used it to manipulate elections, including the 2016 White House race and the 2016 Brexit vote in Britain.