Updated
More than 300,000 Australians may have had their
personal information exposed in the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal,
Facebook has revealed, admitting up to 87 million users around the
world may have been affected.
The developments came as US
congressional officials said CEO Mark Zuckerberg would testify next
week, while Facebook unveiled a new privacy policy that aims to explain
the data it gathers on users more clearly — but does not actually change
what it collects and shares.Facebook is facing its worst privacy scandal in years following allegations that a Trump-affiliated data mining firm, Cambridge Analytica, used ill-gotten data from millions of users to try to influence elections.
The company said as many as 87 million people might have had their data accessed — an increase from the 50 million disclosed in published reports.
Most of the affected users are in the US, while 311,127 Australians were listed as potentially having had their information "improperly shared".
Cambridge Analytica has denied wrongdoing. It said 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.
Initial reports said 50 million Facebook profiles were obtained by Aleksandra Kogan using an app that collected the data of people who were paid to take a personality test, and the data of their Facebook friends.
The same article said Dr Kogan had a deal to share the data with Cambridge Analytica. The man who blew the whistle on the company, Chris Wylie, said the firm then used it to a create software that ultimately influenced how people voted.
Roughly 270,000 people downloaded and shared personal details with the app, which then "crawled" through their social networks to grow that number, Mr Wylie said.
What is Facebook doing about it?
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 will 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 outlined several changes to further tighten its policies.
Facebook 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 said businesses that had phone or email information on customers were able to collect profile information this way.
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.
Photo:
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg apologised with ads in multiple US and British newspapers. (AP: Jenny Kane)
Facebook's new privacy policy
Earlier on Wednesday (local time), Facebook unveiled a new privacy policy that seeks to clarify its data collection and use.It has a new section explaining that it collects people's contact information if they choose to "upload, sync or import" this to the service. This may include users' address books on their phones, as well as their call logs and text histories.
The new policy said Facebook may use this data to help "you and others find people you may know".
The previous policy did not mention call logs or text histories. Several users were surprised to learn recently that Facebook had been collecting information about whom they texted or called and for how long, though not the actual contents of text messages.
It seemed to have been done without explicit consent, though Facebook said it collected such data only from Android users who specifically allowed it to do so — for instance, by agreeing to permissions when installing Facebook.
Facebook also added clarification that local laws could affect what it does with "sensitive" data on people, such as information about a user's race or ethnicity, health, political views or even trade union membership.
This and other information, the new policy states, "could be subject to special protections under the laws of your country".
But it means the company is unlikely to apply stricter protections to countries with looser privacy laws — such as the US, for example. Facebook has always had regional differences in policies, and the new document makes that clearer.
The new policy also makes it clear that WhatsApp and Instagram are part of Facebook and that the companies share information about users. The two were not mentioned in the previous policy.
While WhatsApp still does not show advertisements, and has its own privacy policy, Instagram long has and its policy is the same as Facebook's. But the notice could be a sign of things to come for WhatsApp as well.
AP/Reuters
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