Mark Zuckerberg outlines steps Facebook will take to protect users' data

Days after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in his first public response on this issue, took responsibility for what happened on the Facebook platform. Owning up to the mistake, Zuckerberg stated that this was a breach of trust between Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. But it was also a breach of trust between Facebook and the people who share their data with Facebook and expect Facebook to protect it.
Zuckerberg, in a Facebook post, stated, "We need to fix this. We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again."

He further clarified that in this case, Facebook took the most important steps a few years ago in 2014 to prevent bad actors from accessing people's information in this way. But there are still certain things the company would be doing to prevent users' data from being misused, which he further outlined in his post.

Firstly, Facebook will investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before the company changed the platform to reduce data access in 2014. Facebook will also conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity and will ban any developer from the platform that does not agree to a thorough audit. And if any developer has misused personally identifiable information, Facebook will ban them and tell everyone affected by those apps. That includes people whose data Kogan misused.

Facebook will tell people affected by apps that have misused their data. This includes building a way for people to know if their data might have been accessed via "thisisyourdigitallife." Moving forward, if Facebook removes an app for misusing data, it will tell everyone who used it.

Facebook also plans to restrict developers' data access even further to prevent other kinds of abuse. If someone hasn't used an app within the last three months, Facebook will turn off the app's access to their information. Facebook also plans to reduce the data a user shares with an app while signing in to user's name, profile photo, and email address. Facebook will also require developers to not only get approval but also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data.

For users to have a better understanding of which all apps have permissions to access their data, Facebook will show a tool at the top of the News Feed with the apps that users have used and an easy way to revoke those apps' permission to the data.

Facebook has been recognising and rewarding security researchers who help the platform to keep people safe by reporting vulnerabilities in the services under its Bug bounty program. Facebook is expanding this program for more people to report any misuse of data by app developers.
 
Zuckerberg further says, "I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I'm responsible for what happens on our platform. I'm serious about doing what it takes to protect our community. 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."