Private data security

Facebook believes ‘most’ of its 2bn users had their data improperly mined & misused

The personal information of 87mn users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, the social media giant has said, while also admitting that they “believe most people on Facebook” have had their data misused at some point.

Facebook’s powerful search engine allowed any users to search for accounts by typing an individual's phone number or email to locate the required person. While convenient and efficient, the 'Search and Account Recovery' function likely also helped “malicious actors” gain access to the personal data of “most” of Facebook’s two billion users, the company has admitted. Unless the user changed their setting to block the built-in search function, they were vulnerable to potential misuse of their data.

“Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we’ve seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way,” Mike Schroepfer, Chief Technology Officer at the company, revealed in a blogon Wednesday.