National Post (National Edition)
DATA OF MORE THAN 620,000 CANADIANS LIKELY SHARED IMPROPERLY : FACEBOOK.
Cambridge Analytica got data of 622,161
OTTAWA • Facebook says the data of more than 620,000 Canadians was likely improperly shared with a political consulting company at the centre of an international uproar over the use of social-media information for political purposes.
In a statement Wednesday, the social-media giant estimated 622,161 Facebook users in Canada had their data improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica through apps used by themselves or their friends.
The political consulting company has been accused of using crunch data that was collected without users’ authorization to help Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
To address concerns, Facebook said Wednesday it will restrict the user data that outsiders can access.
The development came as congressional officials said CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify next week.
In a call with reporters Wednesday, Zuckerberg admitted he made a “huge mistake” in failing to take a broad enough view of what Facebook’s responsibility is in the world. He said it isn’t enough for Facebook to believe app developers when they say they follow the rules. He said Facebook has to ensure they do.
Facebook is facing its worst privacy scandal in years following the allegations involving Cambridge Analytica. It said Wednesday that as many as 87 million people might have had their data accessed — an increase from the 50 million disclosed in previously published reports.
This coming Monday, all Facebook users will receive a notice on their Facebook feeds with a link to see what apps they use and what information they have shared with those apps. They’ll have a chance to delete apps they no longer want. Users who might have had their data shared with Cambridge Analytica will be told of that.
With outsiders’ access to data under scrutiny, Facebook also outlined several changes to further tighten its policies.
It is restricting access that apps can get about users’ events, as well as information about groups such as member lists and content.
In addition, the company is also removing the option to search for users by entering a phone number or an email address. While this helped individuals find friends, Facebook says businesses that had phone or email information on customers were able to collect profile information this way. Facebook says it believes most of its 2.2 billion users had their public profile information scraped by businesses or various malicious actors through this technique at some point. Posts and other content set to be visible only to friends weren’t collected.
This comes on top of changes announced a few weeks ago. For example, Facebook has said it will remove developers’ access to people’s data if the person has not used the app in three months.
Earlier Wednesday, Facebook unveiled a new privacy policy that seeks to clarify its data collection and use.
The policy changes come a week after Facebook gave its privacy settings a makeover.
The company tried to make it easier to navigate its complex and often confusing privacy and security settings, though the makeover didn’t change what Facebook collects and shares.
After word of the breach surfaced last month, Canada’s privacy commissioner launched an investigation to determine whether Facebook had respected federal privacy laws.
Daniel Therrien said he believes Parliament should put in place new legislated remedies to deal with potential harms from having personal information widely and easily available on the internet.
The privacy commissioner said Canada doesn’t explicitly recognize a “right to be forgotten,” as in the European Union. But he thinks Canada’s privacy laws could be used to compel companies to de-index information in their databases.
De-indexing information makes it more difficult to find without removing it from the database.