Facebook to connect with 87mn users hit by data breach

IANS  |  New Delhi 

will begin connecting with the 87 million users - including 562,455 in - from Monday if their personal data was "improperly shared" with the British political consultancy firm

Those affected by the data privacy breach will see a detailed message at the top of their news feeds.

Apart from those affected, over 2 billion users will also see a link "at the top of their news feed so they can see what apps they use and the information they have shared".

does not know how and used the data of users because the firms are not its downstream affiliates and may have made independent decisions regarding the data they obtained. This, said, was "not authorise(d) and breached our policies".

The location of those affected has been identified. But said the location was "not an indication of voter registration, nationality or citizenship and may not, in some cases, indicate actual place of residence".

"We continue to investigate all apps that had access to large amounts of information before we changed our platform in 2014 to reduce data access and we will conduct a full audit of any app with suspicious activity," a said in a statement last week.

The informed the last week about the details of compromised accounts in response to a notice over the user data breach and details of the steps was taking to ensure safety and prevent misuse of personal data.

A said a possible breach of data of 562,455 users happened after 335 users in installed a quiz app, "thisisyourdigitallife" between November 2013 and December 2015.

The app, developed by and his company Global Science Research, pulled out data of not only these 335 users but their friends as well as friends of friends also.

Some 335 people in were said to have installed the app, which is 0.1 per cent of its total worldwide installs.

"We further understand that 562,120 additional people in were potentially affected, as friends of people who installed the app. This yields a total of 562,455 potentially affected people in "

The social media giant, however, did not reveal the identity or locations of these 335 users.

After facing mammoth controversy over its users' data breach, the is expected to testify before two Congressional committees this week.

Meanwhile, battered by that it "secretly" deleted Mark Zuckerberg's posts from his recipients' inboxes, is now planning to make its "Unsend" feature - like WhatsApp -- available to its users in the coming months.

In order to prevent election interference on its platform, has also introduced new changes to increase transparency and accountability for electoral ads and Pages.

--IANS

na/nks/ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Mon, April 09 2018. 10:08 IST