Facebook data leak increases to 87 million users

SAN FRANSISCO

Facebook raised the number of those affected from a data leak to 87 million users, from the previous estimate of 50 million, company’s Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer wrote in a blog post on April 4.

“We will tell people if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica… We will also no longer allow apps to ask for access to personal information such as religious or political views, relationship status and details, custom friends lists, education and work history, fitness activity, book reading activity, music listening activity, news reading, video watch activity, and games activity,” he said.

London-based Cambridge Analytica, which has counted U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign among its clients, disputed Facebook’s estimate of affected users. It said on April 4 on Twitter it had received no more than 30 million records from a researcher it hired to collect data about people on Facebook.

The previous estimate of more than 50 million Facebook users affected by the data leak came from two newspapers, the New York Times and London’s Observer, based on their investigations of Cambridge Analytica.

Shares in Facebook closed down 0.6 percent to $155.10 on April 4. They have tumbled more than 16 percent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify about the matter on April 10-11 during two U.S. congressional hearings.

Zuckerberg said in a conference call with reporters that Facebook had not seen “any meaningful impact” on usage or ad sales since the scandal, although he added, “it’s not good” if people are unhappy with the company.