> From what I gather, Facebook did have a compliance program in place to ensure that data was only shared with those that met its usage policies. Aleksandr Kogan was working at the University of Cambridge at the time, so the claim that he was using this data for academic purposes would seem credible to Facebook
As though simply working at a university is sufficient reason to trust someone.
This person held a research position in the psychology department of a world renowned university, and claimed to be writing an app to gauge Facebook users' personalities. T This is more than just "simply working at a university", Kogan held a research position and proposed an app with a purported academic purpose that was in his field of study.
You would be surprised. One of the other criticisms currently is that FB doesnt share data with academics to do research as freely as academics would like.
Which is why their compliance process wasn’t rigorous enough.
As others have said, requiring evidence of University IRB review (which it doesn’t sound like they did) would have been a way to require more safeguards. Yes, bad actors could and maybe would have still abused the system, it makes their work harder and more visible.
As though simply working at a university is sufficient reason to trust someone.