Close to 87 million people will be seeing a message at the top of their Facebook feed beginning on Monday, April 10, 2018, informing them that their private data information has been obtained illegally by Cambridge Analytica. To make matters worse, Cambridge Analytica is not the only company who picked up on this idea.
How was private information received?
Those personality quizzes, IQ tests, and which Disney princess you resemble tests, all require you to give them permission to your Facebook profile, friends, likes, and any other information that resembles who you are as a person.
If you or your friends ever participated in any of these quizzes, there is a great chance your personality traits have been cataloged and monetized by political operatives around the world.
This is exactly how personal data was illegally stolen from third-party groups. Facebook has recently banned CubeYou and AggregateIQ from using or having access to Facebook period. According to Gizmodo, AggregateIQ is under investigation with the Canadian government. Because of all this ruckus, Facebook has caused, many major companies are deleting their advertisements with Facebook such as the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, Tesla and SpaceX, and even Playboy has started to follow the same footsteps.
If your information was illegally taken by any of the companies through Facebook, Gizmodo claims you will see a message at the top of your news feed.
Cambridge Analytica fails to take the blame
Cambridge Analytica fails to take the full blame for the breach of personal data and puts it off on a psychology professor, Aleksandr Kogan, who taught at Cambridge University, and was able to create the app “This Is Your Digital Life” which gave Kogan authorized access to 270,000 profiles which contained private information.
While we learn of how companies are stealing our private data information, now is the time to go through your Facebook settings and update your security. Delete the access to the apps you no longer use. Protect yourself.
Mark Zuckerberg is having to attend court in front of the Senate Judiciary this week but yet fails to testify in London to satisfy the British government.
Zuckerberg has hired Reginald Brown, a former advisor to President Bush, as his legal counsel. It will be interesting to find out how Zuckerberg plans to protect his company and his users' privacy after getting everything straightened out, legally.
