Facebook investigates whether Crimson Hexagon violated surveillance policies

In July 2018, Facebook announced it was investigating whether the Boston-based company Crimson Hexagon had violated the company's policies on surveillance. Crimson Hexagon markets itself as offering "consumer insights". Its customers include a Russian non-profit with ties to the Kremlin, and multiple US government agencies. After pressure from civil liberties groups, Facebook put a policy in place in March 2017 barring the use of members' data for the purposes of government surveillance. Crimson Hexagon claims its dataset includes more than 1 trillion posts from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media sites, and claims it can analyse more than 160 million photographs a day. The company has also worked with Adidas, Samsung, and the BBC. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44909293
writer: Dave Lee
publication: BBC