Amidst media reports on the privacy breach by Cambridge Analytica & Facebook, the latter announced¹ hiring digital forensics firm, Stroz Friedberg, to investigate the claims.

We have hired a digital forensics firm, Stroz Friedberg, to conduct a comprehensive audit of Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica has agreed to comply and afford the firm complete access to their servers and systems. We have approached the other parties involved — Christopher Wylie and Aleksandr Kogan — and asked them to submit to an audit as well. Mr. Kogan has given his verbal agreement to do so. Mr. Wylie thus far has declined.

It was reported by major media outlets²³⁴ a few days ago that a data analytics company, Cambridge Analytica, harvested 50 million Facebook profiles in order to target American voters during the U.S Presidential Election⁵ 2016. Cambridge Analytica’s former employee, Christopher Wylie is being called the data whistleblower⁶ who brought this major privacy breach to light. Since then, it appears that Facebook has suspended Wylie’s social network accounts.

Coming back to the investigation, hours after it was announced by Facebook, the UK Information Office stepped in. Thus, calling Stroz Friedberg to step down from the investigation. It was updated on the Facebook newsroom:

Independent forensic auditors from Stroz Friedberg were on site at Cambridge Analytica’s London office this evening. At the request of the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, which has announced it is pursuing a warrant to conduct its own on-site investigation, the Stroz Friedberg auditors stood down.