Facebook to Begin Notifying Users Whose Data Might Have Been Shared with Cambridge Analytica

Facebook is set to begin notifying users that may have been affected by the company’s latest alleged user data scandal.

CBS News reports that Facebook has plans to notify users that could be affected by a user data scandal allegedly linked to data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica. The leak may have affected approximately 87 million users, most of whom are based in the U.S. but some of those allegedly affected are based in the UK, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Users that may be affected will receive a detailed notification on their Facebook homepage alerting them that their data may have been compromised and what they can do about it.

All 2.2 billion Facebook users will receive a notification titled “Protecting Your Information,” which will provide links to apps connected to users profiles so that they can confirm that they want to continue to allow these apps to access their personal data. Users will see what info apps have access to and can even choose to turn off all third-party access to their apps entirely. Following Facebook’s alleged data leak which could have seen the personal information of 87 million people possibly used by Cambridge Analytica during their 2016 election advertising campaign, user privacy has become a huge concern for the company.

Zuckerberg has acknowledged that Facebook has made mistakes in their handling of the scandal saying “I think the reality of a lot of this is that when you’re building something like Facebook which is unprecedented in the world, there are going to be things that you mess up. And if we’d gotten this [the Cambridge Analytica scandal] right, we would have messed something else up.”

Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg also commented on the scandal saying “This was a huge breach of trust,” Sandberg said on CNBC. “People come to Facebook every day and they depend upon us to protect our data and I am so sorry that we let so many people down.

Mark Zuckerberg is meeting with Washington lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Monday ahead of his testimony before multiple judiciary committees on Tuesday and Wednesday. Zuckerberg is expected to appear before the U.S. Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees on Tuesday and the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday to testify about the company’s user data scandal.