April 2018

Aleksandr Kogan, the academic who was hired by Cambridge Analytica to harvest information from tens of millions of Facebook profiles, defended his role in the data collection, saying he was upfront about how the information would be used and that he “never heard a word” of objection from Facebook. Yet Kogan, 28, a psychology professor who has found himself cast as the villain by both Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, expressed regret for his role in the data mining, which took place in 2014. “Back then, we thought it was fine. Right now my opinion has really been changed,” he said.

[Speech] I know that today’s Expo is specifically focused on technological solutions to the robocall challenge. But if there’s an overarching theme, it’s the need for collaborative solutions. Thanks in large part to technology that makes it incredibly easy and cheap to make large numbers of spoofed robocalls, this is a difficult problem to solve, and everyone needs to play their part in getting the job done. That's why it’s important that Congress is actively engaged. That’s why it’s important that the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission are working together.