Mark Zuckerberg Reveals His Own Facebook Account Data Was Leaked To Cambridge Analytica

Since the news emerged last month that Cambridge Analytica accessed the personal information of around 87 million people across the world, Facebook has been bombarded with criticism for its poor handling of data privacy on the platform.

Mark Zuckerberg was summoned to a second senate committee hearing on the matter today, and the proceedings revealed some intriguing, and ironic, details.

Images courtesy: Reuters

Representative Anna Eschoo was attempting to impress upon Zuckerberg how important it is to protect people¡¯s private data when she asked him, ¡°Was your data included in the data sold to malicious third parties? Your personal data?¡± As it turns out, yes it was.

It¡¯s not likely Zuckerberg installed the ¡®thisisyourdigitallife¡¯ app himself, given his usual attention to precautions in his personal life. However, it does mean one of his Facebook friends did actually install the app, thereby leaking his data as well. Even Facebook¡¯s CEO isn¡¯t free from the consequences of the platform¡¯s mistakes. Facebook this week began notifying users whose profiles were compromised in the leak, and the information is also available on a special help page.

Also Read: Mark Zuckerberg Looked More Robot Than Human At Facebook's 1st US Senate Hearing Earlier Today

In addition, Representative Gene Green also seemed to make the strongest statement of both hearings, asking Zuckerberg if the privacy changes Facebook is making in response to the European Union¡¯s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be available worldwide. GDPR is regulation pass in 2016, that comes into effect this May, that seeks to give back users control over their data. Specifically, it prohibits the data of a citizen of the EU to be transmitted outside it, among other things. More importantly, it allows allows users to demand their data be deleted, and companies have to follow through.

Today, Zuckerberg actually made a stronger commitment that he did at the first hearing. He didn¡¯t just agree to provide the same privacy controls, but also claimed Facebook will provide the same kind of disclosure and will treat users¡¯ data the same. If he actually follows through on this, the new privacy measures should extend to anyone in the world that decides to activate them.

Either way, Facebook has a May 25 deadline to be GDPR ready for the EU. Even if it does extend the same securities across the world, there¡¯s no deadline on that yet.

Also Read: How Facebook Betrayed Its User's Privacy & Mark Zuckerberg Was Forced To Say Sorry To The World