Facebook’s chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer has now confirmed that Cambridge Analytica had access to data on 87 million users — mostly from the United States.
Previous reports had estimated this figure to be around 50 million people, whose data may have been shared with analytics firm. It’s not the first time when the social networking giant has had to publicly increase previous estimates of its blunders on the platform.
Earlier, while announcing the number of accounts exposed to Russian propaganda, Facebook had left out Instagram from its published numbers and had to update those figures later on.
In a blog post that was published on Wednesday, Schroepfer informed that Facebook is also going to inform the victims of data breach, whose data may have been “improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.”
The blog also covered several changes that Facebook is bringing to restrict developer’s access to user data. The company will now individually approve any app that tries to access info related to check-ins, likes, photos, posts, videos, events, and group.
From April 9 onwards, Facebook will pin a link at the top of user’s News Feed so that they can check what apps they use and the nature of data they have shared with those apps. They can also choose to remove apps they no longer wish to use.
In another related news, Facebook has also confirmed that it scans all messages and photos you send on Messenger. The company said that it does so to filter sensitive messages and explicit content.
Source: https://fossbytes.com/facebook-cambridge-analytica-87-million-users-data/
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
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