Facebook's Zuckerberg says sorry in full-page newspaper ads
Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has
taken out full-page adverts in several UK and US Sunday newspapers to
apologise for the firm's recent data privacy scandal.
He said
Facebook could have done more to stop millions of users having their
data exploited by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica in 2014.
"This was a breach of trust, and I am sorry," the back-page ads state.
It comes amid reports Facebook was warned its data protection policies were too weak back in 2011.
The
full-page apology featured in broadsheets and tabloids in the UK,
appearing on the back page of the Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times, Mail
on Sunday, Observer, Sunday Mirror and Sunday Express.
In the US, it was seen by readers of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.
In the advert, Mr Zuckerberg said a quiz developed by a
university researcher had "leaked Facebook data of millions of people in
2014".
"I'm sorry we didn't do more at the time. We're now taking steps to make sure this doesn't happen again," the tech chief said.
It
echoes comments Mr Zuckerberg made last week after reports of the leak
prompted investigations in Europe and the US, and knocked billions of dollars of Facebook's market value.
Mr Zuckerberg repeated that Facebook had already changed its rules so no such breach could happen again.
"We're
also investigating every single app that had access to large amounts of
data before we fixed this. We expect there are others," he stated.
"And when we find them, we will ban them and tell everyone affected."
The
ads contained no mention of the political consultancy accused of using
the leaked data, Cambridge Analytica, which worked on US President
Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
The British firm - which has no connection with Cambridge University - has denied wrongdoing.
What is the row about?
In
2014, Facebook invited users to find out their personality type via a
quiz developed by Cambridge University researcher, Dr Alexsandr Kogan
called This is Your Digital Life.
About 270,000 users' data was
collected, but the app also collected some public data from users'
friends without their knowledge.
Facebook has since changed the
amount of data developers can gather in this way, but a whistleblower,
Christopher Wylie, says the data of about 50 million people was
harvested for Cambridge Analytica before the rules on user consent were
tightened up.
Mr Wylie claims the data was sold to Cambridge
Analytica which then used it to psychologically profile people and
deliver pro-Trump material to them during the 2016 US presidential
election campaign.
Facebook has said Dr Kogan passed this
information on to Cambridge Analytica without its knowledge. And
Cambridge Analytica has blamed Dr Kogan for any potential breach of data
rules.
But Dr Kogan has said he was told by Cambridge Analytica
everything they had done was legal, and that he was being made a
"scapegoat" by the firm and Facebook.
Did Facebook get a warning seven years ago?
As first reported in the Sunday Telegraph,
Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) warned Facebook's security
policies were too weak to stop abuse in 2011, some three years before
the breach took place.
Following an audit, the DPC said relying on
developers to follow information rules in some cases was not good
enough "to ensure security of user data".
It also said Facebook
processes to stop abuse were not strong enough to "assure users of the
security of their data once they have third party apps enabled".
Facebook
said it strengthened its protections following the recommendations and
was told it had addressed the DPC's original concerns after a second audit in 2012. The tech firm also said it changed its platform entirely in 2014 with the regulator's recommendations in mind.
BBC
No comments
Your comments and Encouragement are welcome