Facebook's Zuckerberg admits mistakes over Cambridge Analytica

Political consultancy Cambridge Analytica is accused of misusing data from 50 million Facebook users.

In a statement on his Facebook page, Mr Zuckerberg admitted a "breach of trust" had occurred.

He also pledged a series of changes, making it far harder for apps to "harvest" user information.

The CEO said: "We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you.

"I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I'm responsible for what happens on our platform."

• Facebook 'lost sight' of data says insider
• Cambridge Analytica: The story so far
• The data firm's global reach
• How can you protect your Facebook data?

What has Zuckerberg pledged to do?

To address current and past problems, Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook would:

• investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before the platform was changed "to dramatically reduce data access" in 2014
• conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity
• ban any developer that did not agree to a thorough audit
• ban developers that had misused personally identifiable information, and "tell everyone affected by those apps"

In future, he said Facebook would:

• restrict developers' data access "even further" to prevent other kinds of abuse
• remove developers' access to a user's data if the user hadn't activated the developer's app for three months
• reduce the data that users give an app when they sign in to just name, profile photo, and email address
• require developers to obtain approval and also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data

Mr Zuckerberg added: "While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn't change what happened in the past.

"We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward."

Read More (...)