Thirty-three South African Facebook users installed the app that was used to scoop up personal information that was later shared with political marketing group Cambridge Analytica. However, 59 777 users were “potentially impacted” in South Africa, the social media company said at the weekend.
The 59 777 figure is calculated based on friends of those who installed the app elsewhere in the world, the company said in a statement.
Cambridge Analytica, a data analysis firm that helped US President Donald Trump win the 2016 election, violated Facebook’s rules when it obtained information from 87m Facebook profiles. The data came from a professor who originally told Facebook he wanted it for academic purposes but who then passed in on to Cambridge Analytica, Bloomberg reported.
The professor set up a personality quiz using tools that let people log in with their Facebook accounts, then asked them to sign over access to their friend lists and likes before using the app.
Since the scandal broke last month, Facebook has taken a number of measures to tighten up on user security and privacy. For example, everyone globally on their Facebook page will see an alert leading them to the apps setting where they can review the apps they’ve allowed to access to their data.
“Those potentially impacted by Cambridge Analytica will also see the alert with additional languages, which will then take them to see what data might have been shared,” the company said. — (c) 2018 NewsCentral Media