Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced Saturday that her office is opening an investigation into Facebook and the data firm Cambridge Analytica, which has ties to the Trump campaign.
“Massachusetts residents deserve answers immediately from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. We are launching an investigation,” Healey tweeted.
Healey’s office did not immediately reply to CNN’s request for further comment on the investigation.
The move comes following Facebook’s suspension of the firm over concerns it had violated the social media platform’s policies.
On Friday, Facebook’s vice president and deputy general counsel, Paul Grewal, said in a detailed statement that a University of Cambridge psychology professor, Aleksandr Kogan, had provided Facebook user data he gained through an app to third-parties, including Cambridge Analytica — a breach of the social media site’s policies on protecting people’s information.
Although Cambridge Analytica told Facebook the data was destroyed, the social media site’s statement said it recently received reports that indicated otherwise and was suspending the data firm, its parent company Strategic Communication Laboratories, Kogan, and another person he shared the information with, Christopher Wylie of Eunoia Technologies Inc.
A spokesperson for Cambridge Analytica denied that the organization is in violation of Facebook’s terms and said it is in communication with the social media site.
Cambridge Analytica was hired in summer 2016 as part of the Trump campaign’s three-pronged data operation.