Facebook is telling users if their data was shared with the Trump-affiliated data mining firm Cambridge Analytica. Here's how.
By Daniel Hampton, Patch Staff
LAGUNA BEACH, CA — Facebook says Cambridge Analytica roughly may have improperly accessed up to 87 million of its users' data — including about 71 million in America. On Monday morning, the company says it will begin alerting user if they're one of those people.
Every Facebook user will receive a notice on how to protect their information. Users will see a link at the top of their news feed so they can see what apps they use, the company said, as well as data that was shared with those apps. Users can also remove apps that they no longer want.
"As part of this process we will also tell people if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica," Facebook said.
If your data was shared with the data mining firm, you'll see the image on the right. If your data wasn't shared with Cambridge Analytica — the vast majority of Facebook's more than 2 billion users — you'll see the image on the left.
The social media titan's chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer, said the process will begin around noon Eastern Time in America, Newsweek reported.
Cambridge Analytica, which worked with the 2016 Trump campaign, has been accused of using the data to try to sway elections. CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged he made a "huge mistake" in not taking a broad enough view of Facebook's role in the world. Zuckerberg is slated to testify before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Over the weekend, Facebook suspended two more research companies: the data analytics firm CubeYou, which used personality quizzes to gather data about Facebook users and then allegedly turned around and sold that information to marketers.
CubeYou 'misleadingly labeled its quizzes 'for non-profit academic research,'" CNBC reported.
Facebook also suspended the Canadian analytics firm AggregateIQ. Gizmodo reported that the Canadian government is now probing that company.
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