We violated users’ trust, admits Facebook

FACEBOOK last night confessed to a “major violation of people’s trust” as it announced an investigation into the harvesting and unauthorised sharing of the private data of millions of users.

The social media giant said that it did not “deserve to serve” its users unless it could protect their personal information and conceded it would have to regain people’s trust.

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, said that mistakes had been made after people’s private information was passed on without their permission. He launched an audit of all developers that were given access to “large amounts” of private data, in a sign that the scandal is likely to expand.

The company’s shares plummeted in value this week after allegations that election consultants Cambridge Analytica harvested the data of more than 50million users so they could be targeted with political advertising.

It came after a whistleblower yesterday claimed that Facebook had lost control of the private information of millions of people after allowing their data to be harvested and shared without their knowledge.

Sandy Parakalis, a Facebook platform manager until 2012, told Parliament’s culture select committee that the social media company had taken a “Wild West” approach to people’s private information after giving developers access to its databases.

Matt Hancock, the Culture Secretary, will today say the Government

will do “what it takes” to restore public confidence amid mounting calls for stronger regulation.

Senior MPS yesterday said that the company had “concealed” the fact that people’s information was being passed on and accused the company of failing to “play by the rules”.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, will today raise the issue during an EU summit in Brussels.

In his first statement since the scandal broke, Mr Zuckerberg announced that all companies given access to data before 2014, such as Cambridge Analytica, will be investigated.

Companies who do not agree to a full audit will be banned. New restrictions over the data access given to third party developers will also come into effect.

Mr Zuckerberg said: “It was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with us and expect us to protect it. We need to fix that.” Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said: “We know that this was a major violation of people’s trust, and I deeply regret that we didn’t do enough to deal with it. We have a responsibility to protect your data – and if we can’t, then we don’t deserve to serve you.

“You deserve to have your information protected – and we’ll work to make sure you feel safe on Facebook. Your trust is at the core of our service.”

Mr Parakalis told the select committee that “personal identifiable data was basically allowed to leave Facebook” and “was not really controlled”.

He said that Facebook failed to check that developers had deleted people’s private information.

Damian Collins, the Tory chairman of the committee, said: “The platform seems open to abuse. It was too easy [for developers] to acquire the data.”

Aleksandr Kogan, an academic at the centre of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, told BBC Radio 4 “tens of thousands” of apps had done the same thing.