Facebook Data Leak: Information of 5 lakh Indian users exposed to Cambridge Analytica

Users from countries including United States, Philippines Indochinese, UK, Mexico, Canada, India, Brazil, Vietnam and Australia have been affected by the infamous data breach of Facebook.

Data of upto 87 million Facebook users worldwide was reportedly exposed to UK firm Cambridge Analytica.

New Delhi: In the latest revelations in the Facebook Data Leaks case, Facebook informed that data up to  87 million users may have been exposed to UK firm Cambridge Analytica. This figure is way higher than the expected  50 million. A blog post by Facebook's Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer reads, "In total, we believe the Facebook information of up to 87 million people — mostly in the US — may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica." He attached a chart in the blog that shows the numbers of users of different countries whose data have been exposed. Near about five lakh Indian users' data have been shared with Cambridge Analytica according to the  figures. US users accounted for 81.6 % of the total number of users exposed to the UK firm. Users from countries including United States, Philippines Indonesia, UK, Mexico, Canada, India, Brazil, Vietnam and Australia have been affected by the infamous data breach of Facebook. Here is the chart showing users of different countries whose data have been exposed. Image shared by Mike Schroepfer, Chief Technology Officer of Facebook in his blog.

An Update on Our Plans to Restrict Data Access on Facebook https://t.co/wCnp3bwGJs

— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) April 4, 2018

Shroepfer explains that third party developers could interact with the Facebook via an application programming interface through which the third parties extract the user's data. In the blog he explained that Facebook was making significant changes in its applications, events, logins, groups and pages policies to protect the privacy and personal information shared by the users' on Facebook. Following these changes, the Facebook will no longer allow the developers to access the users' lists or their wall posts of an event scheduled on the platform. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica leak, Facebook has asked the former to delete the users' data and revoke its access to the Facebook's application programming interface. Facebook had received worldwide criticism after a whistle-blower Chris Wylie revealed that Facebook shared the information of users with a UK firm Cambridge Analytica.  Wylie alleged that the Trump-affiliated firm (alleged) , created a profiling algorithm that “took fake news to the next level.” Using this algorithm, the firm influenced the result of 2016 US Presidential elections. In India too, political parties are alleged to have sought the services of the firm for election gains.