paulgrewal
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Facebook suspends Trump-linked data firm Cambridge Analytica (update: response)
Late Friday night, Facebook has announced it's suspending Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) from its site. While you may not have heard of SCL, its political analytics firm Cambridge Analytica has made headlines in the last few years due to work for the Trump campaign and the Brexit initiative. According to former US Magistrate and current Facebook Deputy General Counsel Paul Grewal, this move is occurring because an app "thisisyourdigitallife" pulled in personal information of the 270,000 people who used it as well as information from their friends. While this is allowed under its policy, its creator -- a Cambridge psych professor named Dr. Aleksandr Kogan -- passed the data onto other parties including Cambridge Analytica.
Facebook hires U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal
Facebook is expanding its legal team -- perhaps just in time -- and its newest hire comes from behind the bench. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal will join the company in late June as its Deputy General Counsel, after serving in the North District of California since being appointed in December of 2010. The Recorder first reported the move, noting that Grewal pulled out of several cases involving Facebook in January. In his time on the bench he has ruled on cases involving the social network before, like this ruling on parents trying to access messages in their dead daughter's account, or another case over an outside developer's storage and use of customer data.
