They took your data. Then they took control.|Jan. 26, 2019|United States|114 Min.|TV-MA
Genre: Documentary;Western
Description: “The Great Hack” is a 2019 documentary that delves into the Cambridge Analytica scandal, exploring the misuse of data and its impact on democracy. When Alexander Nix, the former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, was exposed on Channel 4 for claiming to possess 5,000 data points on every American voter, Professor David Carroll took action. With the assistance of lawyer Ravi Naik, an expert in UK data privacy, Carroll initiated a legal battle to reclaim his personal data. Since Cambridge Analytica processed user data through SCL in Britain, Carroll’s complaints fell under British jurisdiction. On July 4, 2017, he filed a complaint with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), leading to a £15,000 fine for SCL’s non-compliance.
As a consequence of the scandal, Facebook was fined £500,000 for its lack of transparency and security issues related to data harvesting. During Carroll’s legal pursuit, SCL declared bankruptcy, and Cambridge Analytica’s operations were found to violate UK privacy laws. The ICO stated that had SCL still been operational, they would have imposed a significant fine for the company’s severe breaches of data protection laws, particularly for its involvement in the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaigns.
Alongside Carroll’s efforts, investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr continued her probe into Cambridge Analytica’s influence. Her investigation led her to whistleblower Christopher Wylie, who revealed how microtargeting, combined with mass data harvesting, was used to manipulate elections. Cadwalladr’s exclusive interviews with Wylie, published in *The Observer*, exposed how psychographic profiling tactics were employed using Facebook data with the assistance of Cambridge University professor Aleksandr Kogan. These revelations brought the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the forefront, prompting Wylie to testify in the UK Parliament and name Brittany Kaiser, a former director of the company. Wylie later published a detailed account of the scandal in his 2019 book *Mindf*ck*.
Cast director: Jehane Noujaim
Cast actor: Brittany Kaiser, David Carroll, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, Ravi Naik, Julian Wheatland, Carole Cadwalladr, Christopher Wiley, Paul Hilder, Emma Graham-Harrison, Gill Phillips
Original name: The Great Hack