Facebook advice by privacy commissioner
WELLINGTON: The only way for Facebook users to be certain their data is not being misused is to delete their existing accounts, the privacy commissioner says.
John Edwards said yesterday if users still wanted to take advantage of the social media platform, they could sign up again with more robust privacy settings.
Thousands of New Zealanders have been swept up in the Facebook data breach which has affected 87 million people worldwide.
Ten people who downloaded a personality quiz app have inadvertently opened the floodgates in this country, by allowing the British firm Cambridge Analytica to access data on their friends.
Mr Edwards said the extent of the breach in New Zealand had surprised him.
‘‘What I think was most striking thing about those figures is that from just 10 New Zealand Facebook account holders who downloaded the quiz — the malicious quiz — some 64,000 people have been affected, possibly compromised.’’
Mr Edwards said Facebook was yet to reveal what information the app was able to access or what it was used for.
The Privacy Commission also wanted to know whether New Zealanders affected by the breach would be told and whether Facebook would advise them of what steps they could take to better protect themselves and their data.
Mr Edwards said although Facebook was working to make sure similar data misuse did not happen again, individual users might want to consider what action to take with their accounts.
‘‘If you actually want to say ‘Well, I don’t want my last 10 years worth of Likes, Pokes and Posts to be misused in the way that’s happened here’, the only surefire way of doing it is to delete the account and if you still want to use the platform, go back and then use it on your own wellinformed terms.’’
Mr Edwards said the commission would not launch its own investigation of Facebook but instead monitor those under way in the UK, Canada, the United States and Australia.
Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker said the breach was a reminder for Facebook users to take privacy settings more seriously but not necessarily to quit the platform altogether.
‘‘Facebook has responded to this breach by setting up a series of tools and improving their management of apps and, if anything, the breach has led to a safer Facebook in the future.
‘‘I think people should review the actions Facebook’s taken and they should take any action about whether they want to stay on the platform based on that, but at this stage I would not be recommending that people exit the platform simply because of this incident.’’
Facebook said from today it would begin showing users at the top of their newsfeed any apps connected to Cambridge Analytica and an easy way to delete them. — RNZ