Skip to main content

Facebook in Full Damage Control After Compromising 87M Users' Data

Share This article

The 87 million users who might have had their Facebook data shared with Cambridge Analytica will get a detailed message on their news feeds Monday. 

Facebook is in full damage-control mode after whistleblower Christopher Wylie first exposed that more than 50 million people were compromised by a "This is Your Digital Life" personality quiz. 

The quiz was created in 2014 by academic researcher Aleksander Kogan. Kogan paid 270,000 people to take the test. The app collected the data of not only the people who took the quiz but also data from their friends because of Facebook's loose restrictions. 

Facebook later limited the data app's access, but it was too late for those who had already taken the test. 

Now, Facebook is trying to clean up the privacy crisis. 

They say most of the affected users are in the US, though there are over a million each in the Philippines, Indonesia, and the U.K.

All 2.2 billion Facebook users will receive a notice Monday titled, "Protecting Your Information," with a link to see what apps they use and what information they have shared with those apps. 

Users can shut off apps individually or turn off third-party access to their apps completely.

Wylie appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday and said the true number of those harmed by this breach could be even larger than 87 million.

Share This article

About The Author

CBN News