45,000 Facebook accounts shared
87 million Facebook users may be affected AS many as 45,000 Irish Facebook users may have had their personal information shared without their knowledge, it has been claimed.
The social network told RTE 15 people had downloaded the thisisyourdigitallife app caught up in the controversy.
A further 44,687 may have been friends with someone who installed it and could also have been affected.
It emerged on Wednesday that information belonging to 87 million users globally may have been gathered by the app and sent to the political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica.
The staggering figure is 50 million more than initially suspected.
The information was harvested through the survey app which recorded data from users who installed it, including publicly available details from their Facebook friends.
SCANDAL
It’s claimed Cambridge Analytica used the data to target voters in the 2016 US Presidential election and convince them to vote for Donald Trump.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has been called to testify before the US House Commerce Committee on Wednesday in relation to the scandal.
Dermot Williams of Irish IT security company Threatscape said yesterday: “Facebook seem unable to confirm just how much personal data was accessed. So when this was taking place, Facebook either didn’t know or didn’t care – neither of which inspires confidence.
“Thisisyourdigitallife was just one of many apps on the Facebook platform.
“How many organisations managed to use the same approach to get their hands on just as much or even more Facebook data and what are they doing with it?”
Meanwhile, Sinn Fein’s Conor Murphy has called for a probe into the DUP’S links with Cambridge Analytica after they allegedly paid €37,461 to associated firm Aggregateiq during the Brexit poll.