In the weeks since the Cambridge Analytica scandal came to light, Facebook has insisted that apps could no longer access the data of users’ friends in the ways that allowed the firm to collect millions of people’s information without their knowledge.
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“But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it”, said Zuckerberg. Last we heard, Facebook had increased the number of affected Facebook users in the data breach from 50 million to 87 million.
Non-users can’t opt out of this data collection, but it isn’t used to target them with ads, a spokeswoman said. Because the sites and apps don’t know which of their visitors and users are signed up with Facebook, they can’t distinguish between users and non-users of the social network when sending data to Facebook, Baser said.
Australian Government agencies including the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner are now investigating and working alongside global privacy authorities to determine whether Facebook has in fact broken laws either internationally or in Australia.
Ms Naughton also said Facebook still has questions to answer.
Britons’ personal data may have been misused by a pro-Brexit campaign ahead of the 2016 referendum that voted for leaving the European Union, a former Cambridge Analytica employee who worked with the Leave.EU group told MPs on Tuesday.
The data was obtained through an app called “thisisyourdigitallife”, a personality test which was developed by Cambridge University academic Aleksandr Kogan. But when asked about a specific practice, such as collecting data about your location even when you’re not using Facebook, nearly 70 percent of people did not expect the company to do so.
The research team uses information gathered through methods including interviews with industry experts, client events and company filing reviews, according to the firm’s website.
Subtle subterfuge has aided the rise of what has rapidly become one of the world’s most valued companies; investors love it.
The suspended boss of data firm Cambridge Analytica has refused to reappear before a parliamentary inquiry into fake news.
The reports come as the firm is under worldwide scrutiny over the way it acquired data on possibly as many as 87 million Facebook users.
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On a regional level, Londoners gave the biggest indication that they were planning to remove themselves from Facebook with searches for the term “delete Facebook account” and closely related terms jumping by 139% – followed by Brighton (129%), Bristol (111%) and Sheffield (93%).
