Facebook made an announcement in an official blog post related to the app investigations that are under process following the Cambridge Analytica’s data misuse scandal that made to the news headlines in March. Out of thousands of apps reviewed so far, around 200 have been suspended and a deep investigation is being carried out in order to identify that either the user’s data was really misused by the app developers.
The VP of Product partnerships Ime Archibong shared an update in the blog post regarding the thorough investigation and audit that is being carried out as promised by Mark Zuckerberg. The investigation was announced on March 21 this year following the major data misuse scandal that compromised the data of millions of Facebook users around the world. The news made to the headlines after a third party app reportedly used quiz apps to collect Facebook’s user data and then later passed it on for the political ad targeting to a consultancy firm.
According to Ime Archibong, the investigation is being carried out in a two-part process. At the first stage, those applications were reviewed thoroughly who had access to the data prior to the change in the company’s policy in 2014. While during the second stage of the process interviews and on-site inspections were conducted and the app creators were contacted individually. A strict policy has been made to ban those app developers from the social media platform who refused to participate in the investigations.
As a result of the investigations that are being carried out for the past 2 months, thousands of apps have been analyzed so far. About 200 apps have been suspected of leaking the confidential data of the users and they have been suspended. In fact, Facebook even admitted the fact that the sensitive data and information for about 87 million users have been leaked without their consent. Since the exact number of the affected users is not confirmed yet, the company stated that more details will be shared soon as soon as the data compromised will be confirmed.
“We have large teams of internal and external experts working hard to investigate these apps as quickly as possible”. Stated Ime Archibong The VP of Product partnerships in his blog post.
Facebook didn’t share the details regarding how long the investigation process will take, as detailed investigations are being performed to make sure that each and every app is analyzed in detail. Whenever a suspicious app is found a team conducts interviews to ask a series of questions regarding the app and the data it has access to. So it seems like the process will take time.
According to a Facebook’s spokesperson, more details will be shared regarding which apps will be banned after the review of each app will be completed. But still, it’s not decided yet that how those details will be shared with the users.
Despite all the efforts, the scandal has strongly impacted the reputation of the popular social media platform and users have started losing their trust on the Facebook. Reportedly Facebook knew about the data breach but the information was not shared with the users at that time. In order to regain its credibility, Facebook has to take necessary security measures so that such things should not happen in future. Moreover, the company should be transparent regarding the results of detailed investigations being performed.
Source: Newsroom
