Mark Zuckerberg
Donald TrumpWednesday, 28 March 2018 ()
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB.) is overhauling its privacy tools in response to the fallout over allegations a political consultancy gathered data from profiles on the social media app to influence elections. The company announced it would launch new tools that will make it easier for users to find and edit their personal information on Facebook. Facebook has come under fire after it emerged data from about 50 million profiles were harvested and passed onto Cambridge Analytica -- which was hired for Donald Trump’s election campaign in 2016 -- without permission from users. READ: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg declines request to appear before MPs over data scandal One of the new features includes a privacy shortcuts menu that brings together some of the most critical controls into a single place. Another feature is a more simplified settings menu for mobiles that allows users to find all their settings in one place, rather than spread across various different screens as they were before. An Access Your Information page provides users with the option to review information about their past interactions with the site and give them the option to delete them. Such interactions include posts they have "liked" and the comments they have posted. “The last week showed how much more work we need to do to enforce our policies, and to help people understand how Facebook works and the choices they have over their data,” two Facebook executives wrote in a blogpost announcing the changes. “We’ve heard loud and clear that privacy settings and other important tools are too hard to find, and that we must do more to keep people informed.” The announcement comes ahead of the new the European Union general data protection regulation, which comes into effect on May 25.