Facebook Says Cambridge Analytica Accessed Data Of 87 Million Users

Facebook said on Wednesday that the personal information of up to 87 million users may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

This number is up from a previous news media estimate of more than 50 million.

Most of the 87 million people whose data was shared with Cambridge Analytica, were in the United States, Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer wrote in a blog post.

Schroepfer did not provide details of how Facebook came to determine its higher estimate.

Cambridge Analytica worked on U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Facebook said it was taking steps to restrict the personal data available to third-party app developers.

The world’s largest-social-media company has been hammered by investors and faces anger from users, advertisers and lawmakers after a series of scandals about fake-news stories, election-meddling and privacy.

Last month, Facebook acknowledged that personal information about millions of users wrongly ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will testify about the matter next week before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, the panel said on Wednesday.

Zuckerberg told reporters that he accepted blame for the data leak, which has angered users, advertisers and lawmakers, while also saying he was still the right person to head the company he founded.

"When you're building something like Facebook that is unprecedented in the world, there are going to be things that you mess up," Zuckerberg said, adding that the important thing was to learn from mistakes.

Shares in Facebook were down 1.4 per cent on Wednesday to 153.90 dollars . They are down more than 16 percent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

However, he said Facebook would tell people if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

The British-based consultancy has denied wrongdoing.

It says it engaged a university professor “in good faith” to collect Facebook data in a manner similar to how other third-party app developers have harvested personal information.

The scandal has kicked off investigations by Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and by some 37 U.S. state attorneys general.




Disclaimer: Stories culled and pictures posted on this blog will be given due credit and is not the fault of drifternews.blogspot.com if website culled from misrepresents source of story.