Over 200 Facebook apps have been misusing your personal data

The recent Cambridge Analytica fallout has shown no impact on Facebook’s financial results for the first quarter of 2018. It has however received a backlash from a good proportion of its aware existing users. A bulk of personal data harvested from American user accounts, on Facebook, by certain apps was allegedly distributed to Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy that can largely benefit from such information. When this came to light, the internet saw a storm of negative comments. Even after the Senate hearings, Mark Zuckerberg has constantly been bombarded with questions about how Facebook collects and employs its user data.

In response, the social media company has now started investigating the apps that it features for a potential misuse of the large amounts of data they handle. This has been claimed to be a comprehensive review by Facebook’s vice-president of product partnerships, Ime Archibong. Facebook has already suspended about 200 apps from the investigation of 1000s that had access to large amounts of user data before 2014. The policies revised after the specified year have restricted this access to consent-based.

Technology market research reports say that leaked data can greatly affect the users. Cambridge Analytica has been accused to have employed this data to influence the 2016 presidential elections. While Zuckerberg claimed that he was unaware of some discussions that may have happened in the boards below him, he did not wish to oust anyone prior to further considerations. He has also taken responsibility for the data leak which is actually seen as the reason for anguish among the people. He acknowledged that personal information of millions of users may have been passed on to the political consultancy without their knowledge.

Cambridge Analytica took up a futile debate with the social media giant claiming to have received fewer records than the number revealed. Facebook has, however, now come forward to take serious action. It has made its plans to restrict what data is available to the third-party app developers that it allows. There will be more stringent audits to highlight those like the one’s Cambridge Analytica hired for its research.

The investigation currently undertaken may take time for a thorough analysis but is expected to be timely considering the impact it can cause. Business analysts and market research reports continue to remain divided in their opinions about how banning apps will help. While some people like to believe that the damage is done, some say that this will remain an important step in the security of Facebook users.